MONDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Increasing surgical volume may reduce the operating time for laparoscopic hysterectomy and also lower the risk for conversion to laparotomy, but high- and low-volume surgeons have similar rates of serious complications, according to a study in the July issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

In a retrospective analysis, Elena Tunitsky, M.D., of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Springfield, Mass., and colleagues assessed the impact of surgical volume on short-term outcomes of 1,016 laparoscopic hysterectomies. The researchers divided surgeons into two groups: nine high-volume surgeons and 39 low-volume surgeons, with 30 cases as the cutoff.

The investigators found that rates of laparotomy (4.5 and 6.7 percent) and serious complications (3.6 and 5.5 percent) were similar between high- and low-volume gynecologic surgeons, respectively. Compared with their first 29 laparoscopic hysterectomies, high-volume surgeons reduced their operating time significantly in subsequent cases. Mean operating time was longer among low-volume surgeons than high-volume surgeons. While high-volume surgeons improved their rate of conversion to laparotomy over time compared to low-volume surgeons (9.2 versus 2.4 percent), they did not improve their rate of serious complications.

"In laparoscopic hysterectomy, increasing the surgical volume can reduce the operating time and the risk for conversion to laparotomy but not the rate of serious complications," the authors conclude.

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