Early experience with urgent robotic subtotal colectomy for severe acute ulcerative colitis has comparable perioperative outcomes to laparoscopic surgery.

It has been established that patients undergoing subtotal colectomy for UC benefit from a minimally invasive approach, despite the longer operating times associated with laparoscopic surgery when compared to open surgery (Andersson and Söderholm in Dig Dis 27(3):335-340, 2009; Telem et al. in Surg Endosc 24(7):1616-1620, 2010; Wu et al. in Int J Colorectal Dis 25(8):949-957, 2010).