Surgeon experience, robotic perioperative outcomes, and complications in gynecology

Robotic surgery is currently on the rise and has been widely applied all over the world. Gynecology offers great opportunities for the development of innovative techniques due to the magnitude of surgical needs. The aim of this study was to correlate perioperative complications, surgical time, and length of hospital stay with surgical diagnosis, procedure performed, and surgeon experience in robot-assisted gynecological surgeries in a 10-year period.

This was a retrospective, transversal, cross-sectional study involving 632 patients who underwent robotic gynecological surgery from January 2008 to December 2017 in a community hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Medical records of robot-assisted gynecological operations were searched for perioperative complications, operative time, and length of hospital stay, correlating these outcomes with surgical diagnosis, procedure performed, and surgeon experience, considering those with 20 or less robotic procedures and surgeons with more than 20 cases in their career as in-training or qualified surgeons, respectively.

Endometriosis (381 cases) was the most common surgical indication, followed by uterine myoma (171 patients). Qualified surgeons had 64% less complications than in-training surgeons (p=0.03) and achieved 20% lower surgical time and 15% shorter length of hospital stay.

In this study, qualified surgeons with more than 20 robotic procedures had better perioperative outcomes and less complications than in-training surgeons during their first 20 robotic surgeries.