Laparoscopic vascular surgery: a systematic review

Objective: The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the results of clinical studies on laparoscopic surgery for aorto-iliac disease. Methods: A systematic review of the literature from 1966 to September 2006 on laparoscopic and robotic vascular surgery was performed. Only patient series containing more than 5 cases were included. Operative, clamping and anastomosis times, conversion, mortality and morbidity and hospital stay were evaluated. Results: Thirty studies were identified. These were all descriptive and included 9 comparative studies. Operative times varied widely, the shortest being for hand-assisted procedures (2.5-4 hours) and the longest for totally laparoscopic procedures (4-6.5 hours). Clamping times were all < 1 hour in hand-assisted procedures while in other techniques clamping times from 1-2.5 hours were seen. The conversion rate varied from