New paradigms in minimally-invasive vascular surgery

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Vascular surgery has been greatly evolved during the last decades and novel minimally invasive techniques have been introduced. Aim of this review is to briefly present all these advances and compare them with traditional repairs.

Areas covered

The authors have extensively searched literature through the Pubmed and Embase databases. All articles published up to December 2021 referring to minimally invasive techniques used for treatment of peripheral artery disease, carotid disease, aortic aneurysms, and venous disease were evaluated. Minimally invasive techniques under investigation included endovascular and hybrid techniques, robot-assisted and laparoscopic approaches.

Expert Opinion

Several minimally invasive techniques such as endovascular and hybrid approaches have been extensively used during the last two decades to treat vascular surgery patients offering them lower mortality and morbidity risks. Novel robot-assisted techniques have shown promising results in preclinical studies although further clinical evaluation is needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Minimally invasive
• vascular surgery
• robot-assisted
• endovascular
• laparoscopic

Article Highlights

• Minimally invasive techniques have been extensively used by several specialties during the last two decades, including Vascular Surgery.

• Such techniques include endovascular techniques, hybrid procedures, robot-assisted techniques, and laparoscopic surgery

• These techniques have been used for treatment of peripheral artery disease, carotid disease, aortic aneurysms, and venous disease.

• Endovascular and hybrid techniques have been associated with high technical success and low perioperative morbidity and mortality. Therefore, they consist a first-line treatment for the majority of cases.

• Robot-assisted approaches have shown promising results mainly in experimental studies and small clinical series. However, these findings should be verified in large observational studies with vascular patients.

• The high cost remains a concern for these novel approaches.

Declaration of Interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.