Is robotic surgery safe in patients with rectum cancer and multiple comor-bidities?

Aim: In this article, by combining the facts that the incidence of colorectal cancer accompanied by multiple comorbidities has increased and that robotic surgery is being used increasingly, it was investigated whether robotic surgery applications were reliable in this group of high-risk patients.Material and Methods: The records of patients with the diagnosis of rectum cancer who un-derwent surgery between January 2011 and January 2019 were reviewed retrospectively. Pa-tients who were older than 65 years, with 2 or more comorbid diseases, with no neoadjuvant treatment protocol in the preoperative period, and with the tumor localization in the middle or distal rectum were evaluated in the study. In terms of the surgical procedure applied, the patients were divided into 3 groups: laparoscopic (L), robotic (R), and open (O) rectal resection.Results: Of the 86 patients included in the study, 41 patients (47.6%) underwent open surgery (group O), 29 patients (33.7%) laparoscopic surgery (group L), and 16 patients (18.6%) robotic surgery (group R). The two most common comorbidities were diabetes mellitus (DM) (65.5%) and hypertension (56.1%). In this study, there were no differences between our groups in terms of postoperative intensive care requirements and early mortality and morbidity rates.Discussion: Robotic surgery does not adversely affect early postoperative outcomes and can be safely applied to the patient group at high risk due to the presence of comorbid diseases.