Robotic Pancreas Transplantation

Obesity is considered a relative contraindication to pancreas transplantation due to an overall increased risk in wound-related complications and surgical site infections. The rationale for performing pancreas transplantation in a minimally invasive fashion is to reduce these risks, which can be associated with inferior patient and graft survival following pancreas transplantation in morbidly obese patients. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, the initial series of robotic-assisted pancreas transplantation in obese patient with type 1 and 2 diabetes has been performed. In this article, surgical technique and world experience in robotic pancreas transplantation are described.