The influence of body mass index on clinical short-term outcomes in robotic colorectal surgery.

Background: Robotic surgery has been developed to address the technical limitations of laparoscopic surgery and might result in similar outcomes for patients with low and high body mass index (BMI).

Methods: Demographic, peri-operative data and surrogate oncologic markers for colorectal cancer of patients that underwent robotic colorectal procedures were collected in a prospective database and analyzed.

Results: 103 consecutive patients (36 normal-weight, 33 overweight, 34 obese) underwent robotic colorectal surgery from 11/2011 to 05/2012. While operating room (OR) time was longer for the obese patients (123.4 vs 137.9 and 154.7 min), results for estimated blood loss (104.2 vs 153 and 155.9 mL), conversions (2.8 vs 6.1 and 5.9%), complications (19.4 vs 21.2 and 32.4%), re-admissions (11.1 vs 112.1 and 20.6) and mortality (0% for all) were comparable. BMI did not affect the surrogate markers in patients with malignancies.

Conclusions: Data demonstrates that patient BMI does not have a significant impact on short-term clinical outcomes during robotic colorectal surgery. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.