NewYork-Presbyterian Performs First Fully Robotic Liver Transplant in New York

A surgical team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center has performed the first robotic liver transplant in New York, helping advance the field of transplant surgery with a minimally invasive technique that will allow for faster recoveries and better patient outcomes.

On April 1, 2025, Dr. Juan Rocca, surgical director for the NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine Liver Cancer Program and attending surgeon in the Division of Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery, led the surgical team in the successful robotic liver transplant of a 59-year-old recipient.

"We are one of only three programs in the United States to perform this surgery, alongside only a handful of centers in the world," says Dr. Rocca, who is also associate professor of clinical surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine. "This milestone is a testament to the teamwork and advancements we have made in robotic liver surgery since 2022, with the ability to take on more difficult operations and the goal of improving patient outcomes for more patients with liver cancer, living liver donors and now liver transplant recipients."

The surgical team included a physician assistant, nurses, anesthesiologists, and general surgeons, with three attending surgeons: Dr. Rocca, Dr. Benjamin Samstein, chief of liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery in the Department of Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Dr. Peter Liou, attending transplant surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

"I'm so proud of our entire team for their collaboration and commitment to advancing the field for all transplant patients," says Dr. Robert Brown, the chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "Our team has always been both outcome and patient focused, incorporating the newest technologies and tailoring treatment to the individual patient."

A robotic surgery is a state-of-the-art technology where a surgeon operates a robot just a few feet away from the patient. During the nine-hour procedure, while looking through camera screens in the robotic console, Dr. Rocca used his hands and feet to precisely control instruments that cut and stitched through five small holes in the abdomen. The team removed the patient's diseased liver after Dr. Rocca robotically cut and clamped the blood vessels, then prepared the vessels to reconnect the new liver from a deceased donor.

"I'm so happy. Dr. Rocca and all the doctors, nurses and staff did an amazing job. They saved my life," says patient Donizetti Rezende of Long Island, New York, who needed a transplant after multiple infections and liver failure led to decompensated liver cirrhosis. "I've already walked a mile around the hospital floor. The incisions are so small and healing so fast. Each day, I feel stronger."

Robotic liver transplant surgery allows for greater accuracy in a procedure that is challenging and complex due to bleeding risk from the body's largest internal organ. Traditional "open" liver transplant surgery requires a significantly large incision in the abdomen and typically requires 8 to 10 hours of surgery, blood transfusions, 10-day hospitalization, and recovery of up to six months.

Robotic liver surgery utilizes small, one-centimeter incisions where robotic arms are inserted, and a small incision, similar to a caesarean incision, in the lower abdomen to explant and implant the liver. It is expected to lead to faster recoveries, shorter hospitalizations and potentially less complications.

"This surgery and others like it usher in a period where long hospitalizations for severe disease may become a thing of the past," says Dr. Samstein, who is also professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine.

NewYork-Presbyterian is the largest transplant program in the United States, performing the most organ transplants in 2024. With a focus on integrating cutting-edge surgical techniques, NewYork-Presbyterian was the first and largest laparoscopic donor program in the nation, offering a procedure that enables living donors to undergo a minimally invasive surgery to remove the liver. The liver program has grown to focus on robotic surgery, transitioning from laparoscopic liver surgery to becoming the first robotic living liver donor program in New York State, with all liver donor operations performed robotically as of July 2023.

"Changes in surgical interventions such as this are transforming medicine," says Dr. Samstein. "Our team's expertise, experience, and shared goal of innovation, with the support of these technologies, enable us to help more patients in need."