SAN DIEGO – At 30 days, the mortality rate from robotic-assisted gastric bypass surgery was zero and the rate of leak or abscess was just 0.3%, a multicenter study showed.
"Complications are few and may be less than with conventional laparoscopic techniques, even in different centers," Dr. Erik B. Wilson said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
Dr. Erik Wilson
In what he said is the largest reported series of its kind, Dr. Wilson and his associates reviewed 1,695 robotic-assisted Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedures performed with the da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical) between February 2003 and September 2011. The operations were performed at three centers: the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (578 procedures), Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor (708 procedures), and Florida Hospital Celebration Health (409). The mean body mass index of patients was 48.9 kg/m2, and the researchers evaluated complications and outcomes that occurred within the first 30 days of surgery.
Dr. Wilson, associate professor of surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, reported that the average length of stay was 2.2 days. Within the first 30 days of surgery there were 81 readmissions (4.8%), "which is not too different from what you’d expect in most populations," he said. Of these, 49 (2.9%) were for dehydration, 27 (1.6%) were for nausea/vomiting, and 5 (0.3%) were for stricture requiring dilation.
There were 46 reoperations (2.7%) within the first 30 days of surgery. Of these, 18 (1.06%) were for bowel obstruction/hernia, 17 (1%) were for bleeding/hematoma, 6 (0.35%) were for negative exploration of patients the surgeons were concerned about, and 5 (0.29%) were for abscess/leak.
There were 26 early major complications (1.5%). Of these, 14 (0.83%) were bleeding requiring transfusion, 5 (0.29%) were stricture requiring dilation, 3 (0.18%) were abscesses, 2 (0.12%) were anastomotic leaks, and 2 (0.12%) were cases of pulmonary embolism/infarct. There was no mortality, "which we think is very favorable," Dr. Wilson said.
Average operating times varied by center: 156 minutes in Houston, 128 minutes in Florida, and 104 minutes in Maine. "As time has gone on, and as we engage each other on how we do things, these operative times have continued to decrease, with current times approaching 90 minutes," Dr. Wilson said. "So long operative times are not necessary when you do robotic surgery."
He concluded by describing robotic-assisted bypass surgery as "an enabling technology that allows for excellent reproducible outcomes, because we have multiple centers doing it well. Future studies should focus on revisional and more complex procedures such as biliopancreatic conversion."
Dr. Wilson disclosed that he is a consultant for Intuitive Surgical, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Apollo Endosurgery, and EndoGastric Solutions. He is also a proctor for Intuitive Surgical, and has received an educational grant from Gore.