A study from the Keck School of Medicine of USC found that robotic partial nephrectomy decreases complications, mortality and other important patient outcomes as compared with open or laparoscopic techniques.

For patients with early kidney cancer, removing part of the kidney instead of the whole kidney is often a preferred treatment because the procedure can effectively remove tumors while preserving kidney function. Study's corresponding author Inderbir Gill, said," Robotic partial nephrectomy has become increasingly more common, yet there's a lack of consensus among urologists about its performance vis-a-vis open or laparoscopic techniques."

When comparing robotic to open partial nephrectomy, the study found that robotic partial nephrectomy offered several superior patient outcomes, including decreased complications during and after surgery, cancer recurrence, overall mortality, hospital length of stay and readmission. There was no difference in cancer-specific mortality between the two techniques.

Results also showed that robotic partial nephrectomy was equivalent to, and sometimes better than, laparoscopic partial nephrectomy. "Our study shows that robotic partial nephrectomy is not only safe and effective but also a preferred approach for treating small kidney tumors," Gill added. Kidney cancer is among the 10 most common cancers, affecting 1 in 48 men and 1 in 83 women. The full findings are published in the Journal of Urology.