Transplantation and Surgery of the Liver, Bile Duct & Pancreas
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center is the largest and most comprehensive center in the region to offer robotic surgery for transplantation and surgery of the liver, bile duct and pancreas. The division of transplantation and hepatobiliary diseases started the robotic surgery program in 2017 in an effort to offer minimally-invasive surgical advances to patients who need complex surgery on the liver, bile duct and pancreas to treat various diseases including cancers. We have since expanded our expertise into robotic living donor liver surgery and robotic kidney transplantation. Currently, we are the only program in the United States offering totally robotic living donor liver surgery and the only program in New England to have performed totally robotic kidney transplantation.
Benefits of Robotic Surgery
The benefits of robotic surgery include smaller incisions, less post-operative pain, less scarring, and faster recovery.
Some of our patients with cancer may need post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation, and a faster recovery from surgery will enable them to begin the next phase of their treatment earlier. Robotic technology enables our surgeons to perform complex procedures in difficult to access areas like the liver hilum where the liver vessels course, the back of the liver which is attached to the vena cava (the largest vein in the body), the pelvis which can be narrow and the pancreas which has areas closely associated with large veins and arteries.
Some of the procedures performed by our robotic surgeons include:
- Robotic living donor hepatectomy
- Robotic kidney transplant
- Robotic liver resection (major and minor)
- Robotic Whipple procedure (pancreatoduodenectomy)
- Robotic distal pancreatectomy
- Robotic pancreatic tumor enucleation
- Robotic splenectomy
- Robotic choledochal cyst resection
- Robotic biliary reconstruction
- Robotic liver cyst fenestration
- Robotic cholecystectomy
- Robotic lymph node removal
- Robotic hernia repair