Minimally Invasive Surgery in the United States, 2022: Understanding Its Value Using New Datasets

Introduction: While minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has transformed the treatment land-scape of surgical care, its utilization is not well understood. The newly released Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample allows for more accurate estimates of MIS volume in the United Statesdin combination with inpatient datasets.Materials and methods: Multiple nationwide databases from the Healthcare Cost and Utili-zation Project (HCUP) were used: the Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample and National Inpatient Sample. The volume of MIS and robotic procedures were calculated from 2016 to 2018. An online query system, HCUPNet, was queried for inpatient stays from 1993 to 2014.Results: In 2017, 9.8 million inpatient major operating room procedures were analyzed, of which 11.1% were MIS and 2.5% were robotic-assisted, compared with 9.6 million inpatient operating room procedures (11.2% MIS and 2.9% robotic-assisted) in 2018. There were 10.6, 10.6, and 10.7 million ambulatory procedures in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively. Ambulatory MIS procedures showed an increasing trend across years, representing 16.9%, 17.4%, and 18%, respectively. HCUPNet data revealed an increase in inpatient MIS cases from 529,811 (8.9%) in 1993 to 1,443,446 (20.7%) in 2014. Conclusions: This study is the first to estimate national MIS volume across specialties in both inpatient and ambulatory hospital settings. We found a trend toward a higher pro-portion of MIS and robotic cases from 1997 to 2018. These data may help contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of MIS value within surgery and highlight limitations of current databases, especially when categorizing robotic cases on a national scale.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study provides the first estimation of national minimally invasive surgery (MIS) volume in both inpatient and ambulatory hospital settings. The findings show a trend towards a higher proportion of MIS and robotic cases from 1997 to 2018. These data contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the value of MIS in surgery and highlight the limitations of current databases when categorizing robotic cases on a national scale.