Robotic-assisted Surgery in Pediatrics: Current Applications, Limitations and Prospects

The da Vinci robot system is currently the most successful and widely used surgical system all over the world. To date, the da Vinci robot system has undergone four generations. The first generation (da Vinci Standard Surgical System) was commercialized in 1999, the second (da Vinci S Surgical System) and the third generations (da Vinci Si Surgical System) were commercialized in 2006 and 2009, respectively. The fourth generation is the da Vinci Xi Surgical System, which came into the market in the second quarter of 2014. Up to 2019, there are 5582 da Vinci surgical system worldwide and 81 are in China. In terms of the number of da Vinci robotic surgeries, gynecological surgery ranks first, and urological surgery and general surgery rank second and third, respectively. Domestic data show that urological surgery accounts for about 43% of the total number of da Vinci robotic surgery and general surgery accounts for about 33%, followed by gynecological surgery and cardiothoracic surgery.