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Esophageal cancer is a common cancer with a high case-related mortality worldwide, and radical resection offers the best survival. Initial reports have suggested that esophagus is an ideal organ which could benefit with robotic assistance. However, it remains to be seen whether robotic technology translates into better surgical outcomes and survival for the patients with esophageal cancer. We searched PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar for English language articles. The search terms included minimally invasive esophagectomy or MIE, robotic-assisted esophagectomy, hybrid esophagectomy, robot-assisted minimal invasive esophagectomy or RAMIE, esophageal cancer, esophageal carcinoma. We review the development of robotic-assisted esophagectomy to focus on the surgical techniques and oncological clearance, and present a brief summary of our experience in this approach. Controlled trials will be required to establish the benefit of robotic-assisted esophagectomy, however the current literature points towards the safety and feasibility of this approach.

Highlights • A rare hepatic venous variation in the voluntary liver donor and the surgical challenge faced by the transplant surgeon. • Review of the variations of hepatic venous drainage and their significance in the context of living donor liver transplantation. • Surgical maneuver employed in dealing with such a rare variation of hepatic vein in the living donor., Introduction In majority of the living liver donors, the left and the middle hepatic veins form a common trunk and the right hepatic vein drains by a separate trunk into the IVC forming two ostial openings. Presentation of Case: This report presents a rare challenge to the operating surgeon in which the three major hepatic veins form a common trunk and drain into the IVC through a single ostial opening. It was detected preoperatively by the routine donor imaging studies. Discussion To our knowledge, this type of rare venous anatomy in the setting of living donor liver transplantation has not been described in the literature before. A few studies have described similar anatomy in the cadaveric liver specimen of some particular ethnicity. Conclusion This type of a rare anomaly poses challenge to the donor operation and requires a sound expertise on the knowledge of hepatic venous anatomy to perform the donor hepatectomy with the appropriate maneuvering.

A 66-year-old Caucasian male was admitted following symptoms of intermittent umbilical pain aggravated after meals and associated with vomiting of contents. Physical examination revealed a tender, partially reducible swelling suspicious of complicated umbilical hernia. Abdominal x-ray revealed dilated small bowel loops which appeared consistent with clinical diagnosis. He underwent a laparotomy subsequently which revealed a small defect in the linea alba with viable small bowel and two firm mesenteric masses encroaching the lumen approximately two feet from the ileocaecal junction. The histology of the excised bowel and masses revealed that the tumour composed of bland spindle cells with slender to plump nuclei and eosinophilic cytoplasm. Mesenteric fibromatosis are the most common primary tumours of the mesentery and constitute about 3.5% of all fibrous tissue tumours. Intra-abdominal desmoids are very rare and benign tumours but are very aggressive and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute abdominal pain.