Single-incision robotic colectomy versus single-incision laparoscopic colectomy: A matched case control study

Background: Single incision laparoscopic colectomy (SILC) and single incision robotic colectomy (SIRC) are both advanced minimally invasive operative techniques. However, studies comparing these two surgical methods have not been published. The purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate the short-term outcomes of SIRC with those of SILC. Methods: A total of 21 consecutive patients underwent SIRC and 136 consecutive patients underwent SILC in separate institutes between January 2013 and December 2019. We used retrospective cohort matching to analyze these patients. Results: Prior to matching, patients who underwent SIRC had a lower percentage of American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grades III-IV (5% vs. 19%, P = 0.11) compared with patients who underwent SILC. The SIRC group revealed a higher proportion of sigmoid colon lesions and anterior resections than the SILC group (61% vs. 45%, P = 0.16). After 1:4 cohort matching, 21 patients were enrolled in the SIRC group and 84 patients were enrolled in the SILC group. No statistically significant difference in terms of operative time (SIRC: 185 +/- 46 min, SILC: 208 +/- 53 min; P = 0.51), estimated blood loss (SIRC: 12 +/- 22 ml, SILC: 85 +/- 234 ml; P = 0.12), and complications (SIRC: 4.7%, SIRC: 7.1%; P = 0.31) was observed between these groups. Length of postoperative hospital stay (SIRC: 8.3 +/- 1.7 days, SILC: 9.3 +/- 6.5; P = 0.10) and number of harvested lymph nodes (SIRC: 21.3 +/- 10.3, SILC: 21.3 +/- 9.5; P = 0.77) were also similar between the two groups. In subgroup analysis, numbers of harvested lymph node is less in SIRC than SILC (SIRC: 18.1 +/- 4.7 vs. SILC: 18.9 +/- 8.1, P = 0.04) in anterior resection. Conclusion: SIRC and SILC are safe and feasible procedures with similar surgical and pathological outcomes for right-and left-side colectomy. (c) 2021 Asian Surgical Association and Taiwan Robotic Surgery Association. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).