Robotic-assisted thoracic surgery: a helpful tool or just another expensive gadget?

It is almost 20 years ago that the first useful surgical telemanipulator was introduced. Since that time, the surgical robot, as it was called ever since, has been applied to a large number of different procedures throughout surgical specialties ranging from thyroidectomy over mitral valve repair and colorectal resections to prostatectomy. A lot of case reports and case series on successful procedures have been published and yet, surgeons struggle to define robotic surgery’s place in every day practice.