['Complete thymectomy is the procedure of choice in the treatment of thymomas and in treating selected patients with myasthenia gravis. Transsternal thymectomy is the gold standard for most patients. Robot-assisted thymectomy has emerged as an alternative to open transsternal surgery. The goal of this study was to compare perioperative outcomes in patients who underwent transsternal or robot-assisted thymectomy.', 'We performed a retrospective review of all patients who underwent robot-assisted or transsternal thymectomy at our institution from February 2001 to February 2010. Data are presented as mean\xa0±\xa0SD. Significance was set as P\xa0<\xa00.05.', 'Fifty patients underwent either transsternal (n\xa0=\xa035) or robot-assisted (n\xa0=\xa015) thymectomy. Patient demographics and the incidence of myasthenia gravis were similar between groups. There were no intraoperative complications or conversions to open surgery in the robot-assisted group. Intraoperative blood loss was significantly higher in the transsternal group (151.43 vs. 41.67\xa0ml, P\xa0=\xa00.01). There were 20 postoperative complications and 1 postoperative death in the transsternal group and 1 postoperative complication in the robot-assisted group (P\xa0=\xa00.001). Hospital length of stay was 4\xa0days (range 2-27\xa0days) in the transsternal group and 1\xa0day (range 1-7\xa0days) in the robot-assisted group (P\xa0=\xa00.002).'] Is robot-assisted thymectomy superior to transsternal thymectomy?