Novel axillary approach for brachial plexus in robotic surgery: a cadaveric experiment.

[thoracic outlet syndrome]

Brachial plexus surgery using the da Vinci surgical robot is a new procedure . Although the supraclavicular approach is a well known described and used procedure for robotic surgery , axillary approach was unknown for brachial plexus surgery . A cadaveric study was planned to evaluate the robotic axillary approach for brachial plexus surgery . Our results showed that robotic surgery is a very useful method and should be used routinely for brachial plexus surgery and particularly for thoracic outlet syndrome . However , we emphasize that new instruments should be designed and further studies are needed to evaluate in vivo results .