Single-Incision Laparoscopic Right Hemi-Colectomy: a Systematic Review

As surgeons became more adept with laparoscopic colon surgery, other less invasive procedures, such as single-incision laparoscopic right hemi-colectomy (SIL-RH), have been applied. The objective of this study was to evaluate the safety of SIL-RH as well as its intraoperative and postoperative outcomes for right-sided colon diseases. A detailed search in PubMed for citations that included SIL-RH from 2000 to 2014 revealed 21 studies fulfilling the criteria of the present review. A total of 684 patients were analyzed. Of the patients, 50.2 % were men. Mean patient age was 64.8 years. Of the patients, 36.1 % had already undergone an abdominal operation before the performance of SIL-RH, while 69 % of the patients underwent SIL-RH for colon cancer. Relatively low rates of overall morbidity (15 %) and mortality (0.75 %) were reported in the included studies. Mean length of postoperative hospital stay (LOS) was 5.5 days. Bowel motility return had a mean value of 2.8 days. Mean number of harvested lymph nodes (LN) was 19.2 LN. All resection margins were tumor-free. SIL-RH was a safe alternative to multiport laparoscopic right hemi-colectomy (ML-RH) in terms of morbidity and mortality, postoperative gastrointestinal function recovery, LOS, as well as oncological radicalness.