• gallbladder cancer
• laparoscopy
• propensity score matching
• radical cholecystectomy
• survival

• Aged
• Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic
• Female
• Gallbladder Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging
• Gallbladder Neoplasms/mortality
• Gallbladder Neoplasms/surgery
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Propensity Score
• Retrospective Studies
• Treatment Outcome

The widespread popularity of new surgical technologies such as laparoscopy, thoracoscopy and robotics has led many surgeons to treat esophageal diseases with these methods. The expected benefits of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) mainly include reductions of postoperative complications, length of hospital stay, and pain and better cosmetic results. All of these benefits could potentially be of great interest when dealing with the esophagus due to the potentially severe complications that can occur after conventional surgery. Moreover, robotic platforms are expected to reduce many of the difficulties encountered during advanced laparoscopic and thoracoscopic procedures such as anastomotic reconstructions, accurate lymphadenectomies, and vascular sutures. Almost all esophageal diseases are approachable in a minimally invasive way, including diverticula, gastro-esophageal reflux disease, achalasia, perforations and cancer. Nevertheless, while the limits of MIS for benign esophageal diseases are mainly technical issues and costs, oncologic outcomes remain the cornerstone of any procedure to cure malignancies, for which the long-term results are critical. Furthermore, many of the minimally invasive esophageal operations should be compared to pharmacologic interventions and advanced pure endoscopic procedures; such a comparison requires a difficult literature analysis and leads to some confounding results of clinical trials. This review aims to examine the evidence for the use of MIS in both malignancies and more common benign disease of the esophagus, with a particular emphasis on future developments and ongoing areas of research.

• Esophageal disease
• Esophageal cancer
• Laparoscopic
• Robotic
• da Vinci
• Heller
• Reflux disease
• Esophageal diverticula

Pancreatic surgery for malignancy is recognized as challenging for the surgeons and risky for the patients due to consistent perioperative morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, the oncological long-term results are largely disappointing, even for those patients who experience an uneventfully hospital stay. Nevertheless, surgery still remains the cornerstone of a multidisciplinary treatment for pancreatic cancer. In order to maximize the benefits of surgery, the advent of both laparoscopy and robotics has led many surgeons to treat pancreatic cancers with these new methodologies. The reduction of postoperative complications, length of hospital stay and pain, together with a shorter interval between surgery and the beginning of adjuvant chemotherapy, represent the potential advantages over conventional surgery. Lastly, a better cosmetic result, although not crucial in any cancerous patient, could also play a role by improving overall well-being and patient self-perception. The laparoscopic approach to pancreatic surgery is, however, difficult in inexperienced hands and requires a dedicated training in both advanced laparoscopy and pancreatic surgery. The recent large diffusion of the da Vinci^® robotic platform seems to facilitate many of the technical maneuvers, such as anastomotic biliary and pancreatic reconstructions, accurate lymphadenectomy, and vascular sutures. The two main pancreatic operations, distal pancreatectomy and pancreaticoduodenectomy, are approachable by a minimally invasive path, but more limited interventions such as enucleation are also feasible. Nevertheless, a word of caution should be taken into account when considering the increasing costs of these newest technologies because the main concerns regarding these are the maintenance of all oncological standards and the lack of long-term follow-up. The purpose of this review is to examine the evidence for the use of minimally invasive surgery in pancreatic cancer (and less aggressive tumors), with particular attention to the oncological results and widespread reproducibility of each technique.

• Pancreatic cancer
• Pancreatic adenocarcinoma
• Neuroendocrine pancreatic tumors
• Laparoscopic
• Robotic
• Da Vinci

After the rapid acceptance of laparoscopy to manage multiple benign diseases arising from gastrointestinal districts, some surgeons started to treat malignancies by the same way. However, if the limits of laparoscopy for benign diseases are mainly represented by technical issues, oncologic outcomes remain the foundation of any procedures to cure malignancies. Cancerous patients represent an important group with peculiar aspects including reduced survival expectancy, worsened quality of life due to surgery itself and adjuvant therapies, and challenging psychological impact. All these issues could, potentially, receive a better management with a laparoscopic surgical approach. In order to confirm such aspects, similarly to testing the newest weapons (surgical or pharmacologic) against cancer, long-term follow-up is always recommendable to assess the real benefits in terms of overall survival, cancer-free survival and quality of life. Furthermore, it seems of crucial importance that surgeons will be correctly trained in specific oncologic principles of surgical oncology as well as in modern miniinvasive technologies. Therefore, laparoscopic treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies requires more caution and deep analysis of published evidences, as compared to those achieved for inflammatory bowel diseases, gastroesophageal reflux disease or diverticular disease. This review tries to examine the evidence available to date for the use of laparoscopy and robotics in malignancies arising from the gastrointestinal district.

• Gastrointestinal cancer
• Laparoscopic
• Oncology
• Laparoscopic surgery
• Robotic surgery
• Surgical outcomes
• Oncologic outcomes

• Biliary Tract Neoplasms/surgery
• Colorectal Neoplasms/surgery
• Gallbladder Neoplasms/surgery
• Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/therapy
• Humans
• Intestinal Neoplasms/surgery
• Laparoscopy/methods
• Liver Neoplasms/surgery
• Pancreatic Neoplasms/surgery
• Quality of Life
• Robotics
• Stomach/pathology
• Treatment Outcome

• Anesthesia/adverse effects
• Cardiac Surgical Procedures
• Cardiopulmonary Bypass
• Child
• Humans
• Risk