Topic: Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy (RAMIE): A New Treatment Paradigm for the Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of death from cancer worldwide, with an estimated 400,000 new cases annually. Neoadjuvant treatment followed by radical esophagectomy with lymph node resection is the standard treatment strategy for resectable esophageal cancer. Minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) using thoracoscopy and laparoscopy has taken the place of open esophagectomy for its less invasiveness and feasible oncological curability. Recently, robot-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (RAMIE) has become an alternative option to MIE that provides magnified three-dimensional imaging of superior quality, tremor filtering, and articulation of instruments with seven degrees of freedom, which facilitate a precise lymph node dissection in the narrow mediastinum.

This Special Issue will cover many of the current important topics related to RAMIE, including education, comparisons with open surgery or MIE, and novel techniques using robotic platforms.

15 Apr 2023