Is robotics the future of laparoendoscopic single‐site surgery (LESS)?

Abstract

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? LESS is a surgical technique that is utilized in many urological surgeries. The recent fusion of robotics and conventional LESS has significant implications for the future direction of LESS. This study is a review of LESS surgery, with a discussion about emerging technologies and the future directions of LESS surgery. Laparoendoscopic single‐site surgery (LESS) is a term that covers a spectrum of surgical techniques that perform laparoscopic surgery by consolidating all ports into one surgical incision. In recent years, there has been an expansion of LESS surgical techniques with a wide spectrum of urological procedures being performed using LESS surgery. Paralleling the clinical expansion of LESS are efforts to improve the instrumentation and access devices as well as incorporation of robotic platforms to the LESS arena. This expansion in technology has generated the essential question: is robotics the future of LESS?