Evaluation of Difficulty Score for Robotic Pancreatoduodenectomy

Robotic pancreatoduodenectomy is the most complex surgery for a general surgeon and consequently a pancreatic surgeon can aspire to. Due to the close proximity of the pancreas to the large vessels, great skill and experience in the field of pancreatic surgery, robotic surgery and also vascular surgery is essential. The ability to predict the depth of robotic pancreatoduodenectomy in each individual patient would be extremely important, for patient selection and for the implementation of the learning curve. This study aims to provide a difficulty score (DS) for robotic pancreatoduodenectomy to be used to select cases based on the experience and expertise of the surgeon.