Cutting-edge pancreatic cancer surgery is reducing recovery time for patients at Ohio State. Pancreatic cancers are often difficult to treat, with surgeries traditionally being highly-invasive procedures. Over recent years, however, the OSUCCC – James’ Mary Dillhoff, MD, has specialized in a robotic surgery called the Whipple procedure, which involves small incisions into which cameras are inserted to provide surgeons with enhanced views. “It’s less invasive and we actually have a better field of vision,” says Dillhoff, who performs the surgery via robotic arms that are also inserted through the small incisions. “It's magnified 10 times your and it's in 3D.” Dilhoff provides and in-depth look at robotic pancreatic cancer surgery on our Cancer-Free World Podcast. Watch on the video player above, or listen on SoundCloud. One of the reasons that pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat—and why it has lower survival rates than many other forms of cancer—is because of the location of the pancreas itself, which is located behind the stomach near many organs. “You have to take out those organs to remove a tumor in that location,” Dillhoff says. “You take out then the gallbladder and the bile part of the bile duct — then you put everything back together.” Click to learn more about pancreatic cancer care, including risks, symptoms and treatment at The Ohio State University. While traditional pancreatic cancer surgeries involve long openings from patients’ breastbones to the areas below their belly buttons, the Robotic Whipple procedure — named after its inventor — requires only six, much smaller incisions. The surgery is still very intricate and complex, though, so Dillhoff and others who perform the Whipple at Ohio State concentrate only on that procedure. “It’s a complicated surgery and that’s why patients do better when they have an expert who just does these operations,” she says. The team at The James’ multidisciplinary pancreatic cancer clinic have performed more than 150 Robotic Whipple surgeries since 2017. To Dillhoff, the biggest benefit has been the reduction in the impacts to patients’ bodies, and their reduced recovery times. “Patients that have the robotic operation are really getting back to their lives more quickly,” she says. “I've had patients go back to work at two weeks —they're really getting back to life faster.” Click to learn more about robotic cancer surgery at the OSUCCC – James.