Minimally Invasive Surgery in Emergency Surgery: A WSES Survey

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1116437/v1

Background: The diffusion of minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery still represents a developing challenge. Evidence about the use of minimally invasive surgery shows its feasibility and safety, however the diffusion of these techniques is still poor. The aims of the present survey were to explore the diffusion and variations in the use of minimally invasive surgery among surgeons in the emergency setting.

Methods: This is a web-based survey administered to all the WSES members investigating the diffusion of minimally invasive surgery in emergency. The survey investigated personal characteristics of participants, hospital characteristics, personal confidence in the use of minimally invasive surgery in emergency, limitations in the use of it and limitations to prosecute minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery. Characteristics related to the use of minimally invasive surgery were studied with a multivariate ordinal regression.

Results: The survey collected a total of 415 answers; 42.2% of participants declared a working experience >15 years and 69.4% of responders worked in tertiary level centre or academic hospital. In primary emergencies only28,7% of participants declared the use of laparoscopy in more than 50% of times. Personal confidence with minimally invasive techniques was the highest for appendectomy and cholecystectomy. At multivariate ordinal regression a longer professional experience, the use of laparoscopy in major elective surgery and bariatric surgery expertise were related to a higher use of laparoscopy in emergency surgery.

Conclusions: The survey shows that minimally invasive techniques in emergency surgery are still underutilized. Greater focus should be placed on the development of dedicated training in laparoscopy among emergency surgeons.

Surgery

Critical Care & Emergency Medicine

minimally invasive surgery

emergency surgery

laparoscopy

survey

Laparoscopy still represents the cornerstone of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), after 80 years of surgery performed by laparotomy, on September 12, 1980 the first laparoscopic appendectomy was performed, followed by a rapid expansion of this technique. The first laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed between 1985 and 1987 in different parts of the world. From this date all the abdominal quadrants and organs have been the targets for laparoscopic procedures, mostly in elective cases [1–4]. The pathway for the acceptance of elective laparoscopy has not been straightforward as reported for cholecystectomy [5].However, technical limitations became the trigger for pioneers and industries to allow safer and simpler surgical maneuvers by improvement in visualization, dissectors and sealing devices [6].Finally, also oncological issues have been investigated, in the last two decades, with good quality studies[7,8].

Reasons for MIS development are heterogeneous and, in some way, interconnected: reduction of patient’s surgical stress, reduced post-operative pain, early return to regular activities, cosmetic advantages, the human innate propensity to innovation among surgeons, industries and economic factors. All these issues can be smoothly managed in elective cases and counterbalanced with patient safety, oncological issues, operating room occupancy, etc.

When we move to MIS in Emergency Surgery, the amount of available literature decreases in number and above all in quality, resulting in lot of uncertainty. According to Surgical Societies guidelines and large retrospective studies with literature reviews, laparoscopic appendectomy, cholecystectomy and gastric and duodenal ulcer repair are well accepted emergency surgical procedures. However, their diffusion, even in the same hospital, can be influenced by insufficient expertise that may correlate with hospital organizational model. Other surgical procedures such as laparoscopic treatment of small bowel occlusion, bowel resection for acute diverticulitis, are becoming more frequent but they are still not routinely suggested [9–12].

In a recent report of a large observational study from UK laparoscopy is adopted in less than 20% of major surgeries in emergency [13].

These difficulties of diffusion of minimally invasive surgery in emergency setting could be attributed to several reasons, i.e., more complexity when compared to elective surgery, sicker patients, higher level of diagnostic uncertainty, no regular day and week working hours, organizational issue, the lack of a dedicated surgical training and not homogeneous surgical and team skills.

The aims of this survey were to explore whether there are variations in the use of minimally invasive surgery among surgeons in the emergency setting and if there were variations, the potential determinants of these variations.

Study Design

This is cross-sectional study, which was performed during the period of March 21^st2021 to August 14^th2021 among the members of the World Society of Emergency Surgery.

Sample size

An invitation to participate to the survey was sent for all the members of the World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) through their email with the invite to extend the survey to all their colleagues. Sample size calculation is not required in this situation because all subjects were approached.

Questionnaire design

The on-line questionnaire is shown in Appendix 1. The design of the questionnaire was developed according to the published recommendations for the development and implementation of web-based surveys (CHERRIES) [14,15] adopting the Google form tool (Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA). It was written in English by a steering committee nominated by the WSES board. The final questionnaire was endorsed by the WSES board.

The self-administered questionnaire was developed in 5 sections:

personal characteristics,
hospital characteristics,
personal confidence in the use of minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery,
limitations of the use of minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery
limitations to prosecute minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery.

The countries of provenience were grouped into the six WHO regions (African region, American region, East Mediterranean Region, European Region, South-East Asian region and West Pacific Region). Surgeries were divided in three categories: major elective abdominal surgery, primary emergency and secondary emergency (re-intervention after elective surgery). Minimally invasive emergency surgery interventions were further classified in four categories based on increasing difficulty (grade 1: appendectomy and cholecystectomy, grade 2: peptic ulcer perforation repair and adhesiolysis, grade 3: colonic resection for acute diverticulitis, grade 4: secondary emergencies). Questions about participants’ perceptions were ranked with response options from 0 to 5.

Validity and piloting

The study has mainly depended on surface validity. Content validity depended on the knowledge and experience of experts. The questionnaire was not piloted. Linguistic clarity was reviewed by 3 international experts from 2 different countries. The experts has different mother tongue languages including English and Italian which assured us that the language used in the questionnaire was clear and not ambiguous for the international participants.

Distribution of the survey and data collection

The invitation to the survey was distributed through WSES web during the period of March 21^st2021 to August 14^th2021. Four reminders were sent to the WSES members email list. Data were collected directly and stored through the website into an on-line database which was protected by a secure password. No incentives for participation were given.

Ethical considerations

The participation to the survey was voluntary and anonymous, an email address of each participant was used for invitation but no personal identifiers were collected. Confidentiality of respondents and their choices were secured. An ethical approval was not needed.

Statistical analysis

The results of the survey were shown as median along with Interquartile range for the continuous variable and percentages for categorical variables. A ordinal logistic regression model was calculated to investigate the role of respondent and hospital characteristics in the self reported rate of use of laparoscopy in primary emergencies. Statistics were calculated with SPSS (IBM Corp. Released 2020. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 27.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp).

The survey collected a total of 415 answers from 67 countries: the majority come from the European (66.5%) and American regions (17.8%). Median age of participants was 43 (37-52) and 85.8% were men, 35.4% of participants declared a working experience >6 years and 42.2% >15 years. Most responders (69.4%) worked in tertiary level centre or academic hospital and 29.4% were dedicated to emergency surgery for more than 50% of the time. Table 1 shows the complete details of participants.

Table 2 shows the self-declared rate of use of laparoscopy and robotic in elective and emergency surgery: laparoscopy was used in major elective abdominal surgery in more than 50% of patients in half of participants (52%), in primary emergencies, only a quarter of participants (28,7%) declared the use of laparoscopy in more than 50% of patients. The personal confidence with minimally invasive techniques was the highest for appendectomy, cholecystectomy and abdominal exploration (median score 5) while it was lowest for necrosectomy in infected acute pancreatitis and esophageal perforations (median score 1). Complete results are shown in figure 1-2.

Table 3 shows the results about the limiting factors in performing minimally invasive emergency surgery: technical skills, technical availability, nursing skills, night-time operation and estimated prolonged duration of surgery were not perceived as great limitations for grades 1 to 3 of surgical difficulty. Among patient-related limiting factors, the condition of shock (hemodynamic instability) was a limiting factor across all grades(median scores of 3 for grade 1 surgical difficulty and 4 for the remaining grades). Among the intra-operative limiting factors, the deterioration of clinical conditions during surgery and unclear visualization of the anatomy were the main reasons why minimally invasive surgery was abandoned (median scores of4 across all grades of severity). Detailed results are shown in the table 3.

The multivariate ordinal logistic regression identified factors independently correlated with the use of laparoscopy in primary emergencies. A longer professional experience (OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.07-2.21 per additional year of surgical experience), the use of laparoscopy in major elective surgery (OR 4.13, 95% CI 3.11-5.47) and bariatric surgery expertise (OR 1.37, 95%CI 1.17-1.60) were significantly related to a higher use of laparoscopy in emergency surgery. Surgeons subspecializing in colorectal surgery (OR 0.77, 95%CI 0.62-0.95) and endocrine surgery (OR 0.75, 95%CI 0.63-0.90)used less laparoscopy in emergency procedures, while those subspecializing in bariatric surgery (OR 1.37, 95%CI 1.17-1.60) used more laparoscopy in emergency procedures.

The results of the present survey show that the diffusion of minimally invasive techniques in emergency surgery is still quite limited. The confidence of surgeon in minimally invasive techniques is higher for simple surgical interventions as appendectomy, cholecystectomy and abdominal exploration but decreases progressively with the increasing difficulty of surgery. The characteristics related to a higher use of laparoscopy in primary emergencies are longer personal surgical experience, extensive use of laparoscopy in major elective abdominal surgery, and bariatric surgical expertise.

According to the literature, laparoscopy is used in less than 20% of major emergency operations: the results of a recent research study from the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA) of England and Wales described that only 14.6% of cases were approached by laparoscopy with a conversion rate of 46.4%[13]. A research study from the USA reported an higher proportion of minimally invasive surgery in emergency general surgery(69.4%), but the majority of interventions were appendectomy and cholecystectomy: the proportion of major abdominal surgery in emergency performed with minimally invasive techniques was less than 20% [16]. Data available in literature and the results of the present survey highlight an important need to improve the safe and effective use of minimally invasive techniques in emergency surgery.

Among the characteristics of surgeons who answered to the survey the main factors related to a higher a more significant diffusion of laparoscopy in emergency surgery were the longer personal experience and the use of laparoscopy in elective surgery: these data highlight the important role of personal skills in increasing the use of minimally invasive techniques. Similarly, expertise in bariatric surgery and prevalent use of laparoscopy in major abdominal surgery were directly related to the use of laparoscopy in emergency surgery. Literature data and the results of our survey suggest that there is plenty of room for improvement in the safe and effective use and the diffusion of minimally invasive techniques also in emergency surgery. Dedicated training in emergency laparoscopic surgery and initiatives of continuing professional development may be beneficial in order to be able to offer the advantages of mini-invasive approaches to a larger number of patients also in emergency.

Moreover, our data offer the opportunity to reflect on which is the best organizational model for emergency surgery.

A surgeon with more developed skills in elective surgery and more experienced in elective laparoscopic surgery is more prone to use laparoscopic surgery also in primary emergencies. On the contrary, emergency and Trauma surgery usually requires dedicated teams with specific skills [17,18] that may not include minimally invasive techniques.

Only 29.4% of surgeons who answered the survey declared to be dedicated to emergency surgery for more than 50% of their time. However, a longer time dedicated to emergency surgery was not significantly related to a lower use of laparoscopy in primary emergency at the multivariate analysis, showing a very complex interaction with several other characteristics as personal experience and personal expertise. Almost exclusive emergency surgery practice is not associated with lack of confidence with MIS, but extensive elective laparoscopic experience is for sure a positive factor.

Having said this, data about the limiting factors to the use of minimally invasive techniques in emergency surgery show that a surgeons' perception of their surgical skills was not considered to be a limiting factor (table 3). Similarly, the night-time, the nursing skills and the technology availability do not seem to be major limiting factors. This may reflect the intrinsic ability of surgeons to adapt to the circumstances and their strong commitment to improvement in any environmental situation. Among patients’ conditions, the only factors that seem to be limiting factors in the use of minimally invasive surgery in emergency surgery is the shock condition, while age and high predicted morbidity and mortality according to the most common clinical scores as ASA, P-POSSUM and APACHE II are perceived as important limiting factors for difficult surgeries (median score 3).

The results of the present survey should be interpreted with caution at the light of some considerations. First of all, the relatively small number of respondents represent a highly selected population of surgeons, in fact, most respondents works in academic and tertiary hospitals mostly from the European and the American WHO regions. Moreover, the majority of respondents are surgeons with a particular interest in emergency and trauma surgeon with an active participation or an affiliation to a scientific society.

For these reasons - this selection bias and the relatively small number of participants from developing countries and smaller hospitals - the present survey may not be an accurate description of the real world uptake of minimally invasive surgery techniques in emergency surgery. The WHO region and technology availability were not significantly related to an increased or decreased use of laparoscopy in emergency surgery, however, the confidence intervals were very wide indicating the uncertainty about this issue. This suggests the need for further research in order to describe the role of availability of technology in smaller hospitals.

In conclusion, the present survey shows that minimally invasive techniques in emergency surgery are still underutilized by a large proportion of surgeons. Among the factors related to a larger adoption of minimally invasive techniques, the most important are the adoption of laparoscopy in elective surgery and increased surgical experience. In order to improve the uptake of minimally invasive technique in the emergency setting, greater focus should be placed on the development of dedicated training in laparoscopy.

- Consent for publication: no consent was needed for the publication

- Availability of Data: data are available on request to the corresponding author

- Competing interests: all the authors declare to have no conflict of interest.

- Funding: no funding

- Authors' contributions: MC, MP, FC, Fco ideated the research and study design

MC and MP analyzed data

MC, MP, FAZ, FC, NA, KG, YK, WB, GT, GB, LA, MS, WB and Fco drafted the manuscript

All the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript

WSES-MIS working group

Andreas Fette¹³, Andreas Hecker¹⁴, Andrey Litvin¹⁵, Antonello Forgione¹⁶, Ari Leppaniemi¹⁷, Belinda de Simone¹⁸, Boris Sakakushev¹⁹, Casey R Palmatier²⁰, Cino Bendinelli²¹, Dimitris Damascos²², Edoardo Picetti²³, Edward Tan²⁴, Elia Poiasina², Emmanouil Pikoulis²⁵, Enrico Cicuttin¹², Ernest E Moore²⁶, George Velmahos²⁷, Gustavo Fraga²⁸, Harry Van Goor²⁹, Ian Civil³⁰, Imtiz Wani³¹, Isidoro Di Carlo³², Joseph Galante³³, Kjetil Søreide³⁴, Luca Degrate³⁵, Luigi Zorcolo³⁶, Marc de Moya³⁷, Marco Braga¹, Marco Cereda³⁵, Micheal Sugrue³⁸, Mircea Chirica³⁹, Nicola de Angelis⁴⁰, Philip F. Stahel⁴¹, Rao Ivatury⁴², Richard Ten Broek⁴³, Salomone di Saverio⁴⁴, Solomon Gurmu Beka⁴⁵, Stefano Magnone², Yunfeng Cui⁴⁶, Zsolt J. Balogh⁴⁷, Micheal Dennis Kelly⁴⁸, Kenji Inaba⁴⁹

13: Pediatric Surgery_Special Services (PS_SS) Weissach im Tal, Drosselstr 4 71554 Weissach im Tal/FRG

14: Universitätsklinikum Gießen und Marburg, Standort Gießen, Giessen, Germany

15: Department of Surgical Disciplines, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Regional Clinical Hospital, Kaliningrad, Russia

16: General Surgery, Niguarda Hospital, Milano, Italy

17: Abdominal Center, Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Finland.

18: Department of Emergency and metabolic minimally invasive surgery, Centre Hospitalier Intercommunal De Poissy/Saint Germain en Laye, Possy-France

19: RIMU/Research Institute at Medical University of Plovdiv/UMHAT St George Plovdiv, Bulgaria

20: Henry Ford Professor and Edward J. Brickhouse Chairman| EVMS Surgery
EVMS Medical Group, Norfolk, VA, USA.

21: Endocrine & General Surgery, Conjoint Professor, University of Newcastle, Deputy Director of Trauma, John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, Australia.

22: Consultant in General and Emergency Surgery,Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer,Deanery of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburg, Edinburg, Scotland, UK

23: Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Parma University Hospital, Parma, Italy.

24: Chair deparment of Emergency Medicine, Radboud UMC, Nijmegen, Netherlands

25: Professor of Surgery & Chairman of the 3rd Department of Surgery, Attikon
General Hospital, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Athen, Grece

26: Ernest E Moore Shock Trauma Center, Denver Health, Dencer, Colorado, USA

27: John F. Burke Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Chief, Division of Trauma, Emergency Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

28: Professor Associado do Departamento de Cirurgia, Coordenador da Disciplina de Cirurgia do Trauma, Coordenador do Escritório de Relações Internacionais Faculdade de Ciências Médicas (FCM) – Unicamp Campinas, SP. Brasil.

29: Head of Surgical Research Laboratory, Chair Theme Reconstructive and Regenerative Medicine, Radbouc UMC, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

30: Surgery, Auckland City Hospital, Aucland, New Zeland

31: Government Gousia Hospital,Srinagar, Kashmir,India

32: Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technologies, University of Catania, General Surgery Cannizzaro Hospital, Catania, Italy.

33: Medical Director, Perioperative Services,Trauma Medical Director, Professor of Surgery, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA.

34: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery | Stavanger University Hospital - Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Norway

35: General Surgery, ASST Monza, Monza, Italy

36: General Surgery, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

37: Professor and Chief of Trauma/Acute Care Surgery, Lunda/Aprahamian Chair Medical College of Wisconsin/Froedtert Trauma Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

38: General Surgery, Letterkenny Hospital Donegal, Ireland

39: General Surgery, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble, Grenoble, France

40: Unit of Digestive and HPB Surgery, CARE Department Henri Mondor University Hospital (AP-HP), Faculty of Medicine, University of Paris Est, Créteil, France

41: The Medical Center of Aurora and Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital, Aurora, CO, USA

42: Chief, Trauma, Critical Care , Emergency surgery, VCU Health System, Richmond, Virginia, USA

43: Surgery, Radbouc UMC, Nijmegen, The netherlands

44: Director of General Surgery Dept., ASUR Marche, AV5, Hospital of San Benedetto del Tronto (AP) - Sapienza University, Roma, Italy

45: Consultant Emergency Surgery, Professional Specialist at Ethiopian Air Force Hospital. President of Ethiopian Emergency Surgery Association. Bishoftu, Oromia, Ethiopia.

46: Department of Surgery, Tianjin Nankai Hospital, Nankai Clinical School of Medicine, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.

47: Department of Traumatology, John Hunter Hospital and University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW Australia

48: MedAlliance, Albury, NSW, Australia.

49: Professor and Vice Chair of Surgery, University of Southern California, LAC+USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA

WSES- MIS consortia: see appendix 2

Semm K. Endoscopic appendectomy. Endoscopy [Internet]. 1983,15:59–64. Available from: http://www.thieme-connect.de/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-2007-1021466
Antoniou SA, Antoniou GA, Antoniou AI, Granderath F-A. Past, Present, and Future of Minimally Invasive Abdominal Surgery. JSLS J Soc Laparoendosc Surg [Internet]. 2015,19:e2015.00052. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4589904/
Arezzo A. The past, the present, and the future of minimally invasive therapy in laparoscopic surgery: A review and speculative outlook. Minim Invasive Ther Allied Technol [Internet]. 2014,23:253–60. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13645706.2014.900084
Reynolds W. The first laparoscopic cholecystectomy. JSLS J Soc Laparoendosc Surg [Internet]. 2001,5:89–94. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11304004
Litynski GS. Erich Mühe and the rejection of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (1985): a surgeon ahead of his time. JSLS J Soc Laparoendosc Surg [Internet]. 1998,2:341–6. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10036125
Wexner SD, Johansen OB. Laparoscopic Bowel Resection: Advantages and Limitations. Ann Med [Internet]. 1992,24:105–10. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/07853899209148335
Bonjer HJ, Hop WCJ, Nelson H, Sargent DJ, Lacy AM, Castells A, et al. Laparoscopically Assisted vs Open Colectomy for Colon Cancer. Arch Surg [Internet]. 2007,142:298. Available from: http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/archsurg.142.3.298
Clinical Outcomes of Surgical Therapy Study Group, Nelson H, Sargent DJ, Wieand HS, Fleshman J, Anvari M, et al. A Comparison of Laparoscopically Assisted and Open Colectomy for Colon Cancer. N Engl J Med [Internet]. 2004,350:2050–9. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15141043
Agresta F, Ansaloni L, Baiocchi GL, Bergamini C, Campanile FC, Carlucci M, et al. Laparoscopic approach to acute abdomen from the Consensus Development Conference of the Societa Italiana di Chirurgia Endoscopica e nuove tecnologie (SICE), Associazione Chirurghi Ospedalieri Italiani (ACOI), Societa Italiana di Chirurgia (SIC), Societa . Surg Endosc. 2012,26:2134–64.
Sauerland S, Agresta F, Bergamaschi R, Borzellino G, Budzynski A, Champault G, et al. Laparoscopy for abdominal emergencies. Surg Endosc [Internet]. 2006,20:14–29. Available from: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00464-005-0564-0
Wright DB, Koh CE, Solomon MJ. Systematic review of the feasibility of laparoscopic reoperation for early postoperative complications following colorectal surgery. Br J Surg [Internet]. 2017,104:337–46. Available from: https://academic.oup.com/bjs/article/104/4/337-346/6123267
Arnold M, Elhage S, Schiffern L, Lauren Paton B, Ross SW, Matthews BD, et al. Use of minimally invasive surgery in emergency general surgery procedures. Surg Endosc [Internet]. 2020,34:2258–65. Available from: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00464-019-07016-1
Pucher PH, Mackenzie H, Tucker V, Mercer SJ. A national propensity score-matched analysis of emergency laparoscopic versus open abdominal surgery. Br J Surg [Internet]. 2021,108:934–40. Available from: https://academic.oup.com/bjs/article/108/8/934/6173823
Eysenbach G, Wyatt J. Using the Internet for Surveys and Health Research. J Med Internet Res [Internet]. 2002,4:e13. Available from: http://www.jmir.org/2002/2/e13/
KELLEY K. Good practice in the conduct and reporting of survey research. Int J Qual Heal Care [Internet]. 2003,15:261–6. Available from: https://academic.oup.com/intqhc/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/intqhc/mzg031
Donohue SJ, Reinke CE, Evans SL, Jordan MM, Warren YE, Hetherington T, et al. Laparoscopy is associated with decreased all-cause mortality in patients undergoing emergency general surgery procedures in a regional health system. Surg Endosc [Internet]. Springer US, 2021,9–11. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-021-08699-1
Catena F, Moore EE. World Journal of Emergency Surgery (WJES), World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) and the role of emergency surgery in the world. World J Emerg Surg [Internet]. 2007,2:3. Available from: https://wjes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1749-7922-2-3
Coccolini F, Catena F, Manfredi R, Montori G, Ansaloni L. Emergency and Trauma Surgery. Ann Surg [Internet]. 2017,266:e12–3. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/00000658-201707000-00042

Table 1: characteristics of survey respondents

		Median (IQR)	N	%
Age		43 (37-52)
Sex	Male		356	85.8%
Sex	Female		59	14.2%
WHO Area	African region		11	2.7%
	American Region		74	17.8%
	South East Asian Region		18	4.3%
	European Region		276	66.5%
	East Mediterranean Region		13	3.1%
	West Pacific Region		23	5.5%
Professional experience	Resident		12	2.9%
	0-5 years		81	19.5%
	6-15 years		147	35.4%
	>15 years		175	42.2%
Self-declared Expertise	General Surgery	4 (3-5)
	Emergency and Trauma Surgery	4 (3-5)
	Colorectal Surgery	3 (2-4)
	Upper GI	3 (2-4)
	HPB	2 (1-4)
	Endocrine Surgery	2 (1-3)
	Bariatric Surgery	1 (0-2)
Kind of Hospital	Private Hospital		104	25.1%
Kind of Hospital	Public Hospital		311	74.9%
Hospital Level	first level – rural		21	5.1%
	second level		106	25.5%
	Academic - referral hospital		288	69.4%
Emergency department			392	94,5%
dedicated Emergency surgery unit			175	42,2%
Time dedicated to emergency surgery	0%		4	1.0%
	1-25%		142	34.2%
	26-50%		147	35.4%
	>50%		122	29.4%

Table 2: self-declared rate of use of laparoscopy and robotic in elective and emergency surgery.

		N	%
Self declared use of minimally invasive surgery - laparoscopy
Laparoscopy in major elective surgery	Never	18	4.3%
	0-25%	80	19.3%
	26-50%	101	24.3%
	more than 50%	216	52.0%
Laparoscopy in primary surgical emergencies	Never	18	4.3%
	0-25%	102	24.6%
	26-50%	176	42.4%
	more than 50%	119	28.7%
Laparoscopy in secondary surgical emergencies	Never	47	11.3%
	0-25%	181	43.6%
	26-50%	107	25.8%
	more than 50%	80	19.3%
Self declared use of minimally invasive surgery - Robotic
Robotic in major elective surgery	Never	346	83.4%
	0-25%	46	11.1%
	26-50%	14	3.4%
	more than 50%	9	2.2%
Robotic in primary surgical emergencies	Never	400	96.4%
	0-25%	11	2.7%
	26-50%	2	0.5%
	more than 50%	2	0.5%
Robotic in secondary surgical emergencies	Never	398	95.9%
	0-25%	14	3.4%
	26-50%	1	0.2%
	more than 50%	2	0.5%

Table 3: limiting factors in performing minimally invasive emergency surgery:

	Appendicitis, Cholecystitis (Grade 1)	Perforation of Gastric and Duodenal Ulcer, Bowel Obstruction due to peritoneal adhesions (Grade 2)	Colon resection for Hinchey 3 and 4 Acute Diverticulitis (Grade 3)	Dehiscence of intestinal, colorectal, gastrointestinal anastomosis; bile leak after cholecystectomy, bile leak after liver resection, postoperative haemoperitoneum, postoperative intestinal obstruction (Grade 4)
	Median (IQR)	Median (IQR)	Median (IQR)	Median (IQR)
Limiting factors
Your own surgical skills	1 (0-4)	2 (0-3)	2 (1-4)	2 (1-4)
Nursing skills	1 (0-3)	1 (0-3)	1 (0-3)	1 (0-3)
Night-time operation	1 (0-3)	2 (0-3)	2 (1-4)	2 (1-4)
Technology availability	2 (0-4)	2 (0-4)	2 (0-4)	2 (0-4)
Estimated prolonged surgical duration	1 (0-3)	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
Patient-related limiting factors
Shock condition	3 (1-5)	4 (2-5)	4 (3-5)	4 (3-5)
Age	1 (0-3)	1 (0-3)	2 (0-3)	2 (0-3)
ASA score	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
APACHE score	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
P-POSSUM	2 (1-3)	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
ACSNSQUIP Surgical Risk	2 (1-3)	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
Previous abdominal surgery	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (2-4)	3 (2-4)
Intra-operative limiting factors
Duration of the surgical procedure	2 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (1-4)
Bleeding	3 (2-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (2-4)	3 (1-4)
Unclear/suboptimal visualization of anatomical structures	4 (2-5)	4 (2-5)	4 (2-5)	4 (3-5)
Bowel perforation	3 (1-4)	3 (1-4)	3 (2-4)	3 (2-4)
Intraoperative clinical deterioration	4 (2-5)	4 (2-5)	4 (3-5)	4 (3-5)

Table 4: multivariate ordinal regression on use of MIS in primary emergencies

Variable		OR	95% Confidence Interval
Variable		OR	lower	Upper	p value
Sex
	Male	1
	Female	0.715	0.400	1.277	0,257
Age (+1)		0.982	0.952	1.012	0,238
WHO Region
	West Pacific Region	1.789	0.413	7.738	0,437
	East Mediterranean Region	1.299	0.249	6.775	0,756
	Europe	3.078	0.875	10.826	0,080
	South East Asian Region	0.906	0.181	4.522	0,904
	American Region	3.409	0.921	12.622	0,066
	African Region	1
Kind of Hospital
	Public hospital	1
	Private Hospital	1.193	0.740	1.924	0,470
Hospital Level
	First level hospital	0.524	0.208	1.320	0,171
	Second level hospital	0.826	0.319	2.138	0,693
	Academic Hospital	1
Presence of Emergency department		1,401	0.601	3.263	0.435
Presence of Acute care service /unit		0,795	0.508	1.245	0.316
Years of professional experience (+1)		1,544	1.074	2.219	0.019
Personal Expertise
	General surgery	1.193	0.878	1.621	0,258
	Emergency and trauma surgery	1.130	0.885	1.442	0,327
	Colorectal expertise	0.770	0.621	0.955	0,017
	Upper GI	1.060	0.850	1.323	0,604
	HPB	0.997	0.833	1.194	0,978
	Endocrine surgery	0.756	0.636	0.900	0,002
	Bariatric surgery	1.370	1.171	1.603	<0,001
Use of Laparoscopy in elective surgery		4,130	3.116	5.474	<0.001
time dedicated to emergency surgery		1,256	0.951	1.658	0.108

No competing interests reported.

Minimally Invasive Surgery in Emergency Surgery: A WSES Survey

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Declarations

References

Tables

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1