Robotic distal pancreatectomy—current status and learning curves

In recent years, minimally invasive surgery has quickly overtaken conventional open tech-niques to become the gold-standard approach for many surgical procedures. Robotic assisted laparoscopic pancreatic surgery, positioned as a platform to overcome limitations of lapa-roscopy, has seen a rapid rise in adoption especially in distal pancreatectomy. Early evidence suggests superiority of the robotic surgery over laparoscopy with reduction in blood loss, conversion to laparotomy and increased rates of splenic preservation. However, limitations of cost and learning curve especially with the adoption of more complex procedures remain. This paper discusses the current literature of robotic distal pancreatectomy and its learning curve.