The impact of body mass index on robotic surgery outcomes in endometrial cancer

To compare surgical outcomes of patients with endometrial cancer who underwent robotic surgery across different BMI categories.

A retrospective study including all consecutive patients with endometrial cancer who underwent robotic surgery at a tertiary cancer center between December 2007 and December 2022. The study analyzed outcome measures, including blood loss, surgical times, length of hospitalization, perioperative complications, and conversion rates with the Kruskal-Wallis test for BMI group differences and the Chi-squared test for associations between categorical variables.

A total of 1329 patients with endometrial cancer were included in the study. Patients were stratified by BMI: <30.0 (n = 576; 43.3%), 30.0-39.9 (n = 449; 33.8%), and ≥ 40.0 (n = 304; 22.9%). There were no significant differences in post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) stay (p = 0.105) and hospital stay (p = 0.497) between the groups. The rate of post-op complications was similar across the groups, ranging from 8.0% to 9.5% (p = 0.761). The rate of conversion to laparotomy was also similar across the groups, ranging from 0.7% to 1.0% (p = 0.885). Women with a BMI ≥40.0 had a non-clinically relevant but greater median estimated blood loss (30 mL vs. 20 mL; p < 0.001) and longer median operating room (OR) time (288 min vs. 270 min; p < 0.001). Within the OR time, the median set-up time was longer for those with a higher BMI (58 min vs. 50 min; p < 0.001). However, skin-to-skin time (209 min vs. 203 min; p = 0.202) and post-op time (14 min vs. 13 min; p = 0.094) were comparable between groups.

BMI does not affect the peri-operative outcome of patients undergoing robotic staging procedures for endometrial cancer.