The role of robots in colorectal surgery and the difficulty of running reliable comparisons with conventional laparoscopy

We read with great interest the recentlypublished study by Pinar and colleagues. In their piece “Long-Term Outcomes of Robot-Assisted Surgery in Patients with Colorectal Cancer”, the authors examine the oncological outcomes of patients receivingsurgery for colorectal cancer (CRC) with curative intent (1). The authors have compared the outcomes of conventional laparoscopicsurgery and those of robotic surgery with the aim of evaluating the relativesurvivals of the two techniques. They should be congratulated on their timely report, especially due to the relative paucity of specific analyses upon theargument (2-4).