A recent study illustrated that in patients with advanced liver disease needing cholecystectomy, robotic cholecystectomy is a safe option and should be considered.

A retrospective study of the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database was conducted to investigate the outcomes of robotic cholecystectomy in patients with advanced liver disease who underwent cholecystectomy between 2014 and 2015.

Based on their model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score and the type of surgical procedure: open, laparoscopic, or robotic cholecystectomy, patients were categorized.

Range of 30-day complications, including the superficial surgical, deep, organ-specific site infection (SSI), pneumonia, deep venous thrombosis, wound disruption, unplanned intubation, pulmonary embolism, transfusion occurrence, and return to the operating room were the primary outcome parameters.

The 30-day readmission and mortality were the secondary outcome parameters. Rates of a variety of postoperative complications, including the length of stay (LOS) were precisely evaluated. In patients with a MELD score of 21 to 30, open cholecystectomy was found to be linked with a long hospital LOS as depicted in the following table:

For higher MELD score patients, robotic cholecystectomy was equivalent to laparoscopic cholecystectomy in terms of perioperative mortality but was linked with lower conversion rates and overall length of stay.

Thus, robotic cholecystectomy is a safe option for treating patients having advanced liver disease.