The impact of robotic colorectal surgery in obese patients: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression

Robotic surgery (RS) may overcome the limitations of laparoscopic colorectal surgeries (LS) in obese patients, but remains less well studied. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to evaluate the outcomes of obese patients who have undergone robotic colorectal surgery. This study was performed according to the PRISMA guidelines. A search was performed on Medline, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library to identify relevant articles. Dichotomous and continuous outcomes were analyzed as risk ratio (RR) and mean difference (MD), respectively. All post-operative outcomes were within 30 days after surgery. The quality of studies was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Meta-regression analysis was conducted to identify sources of heterogeneity. Three studies totaling 262 subjects compared LS (45.0%) against RS (55.0%) in obese patients. The RS group had a significantly reduced length of hospital stay (LOS) (MD − 2.55 days, 95%CI − 3.13 to − 1.97 days, P