Systematic Review of Interventions to Reduce Operating Time in Lung Cancer Surgery

Introduction: Operating rooms are a scarce resource but often used inefficiently. Operating room efficiency emerges as an important part of maximizing surgical capacity and productivity, minimizing delays, and optimizing lung cancer outcomes. The operative time (time between patient entering and leaving the operating room) is discrete and the one that the surgical team can most directly influence. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the literature and identify methods to improve the efficiency of the intraoperative phase of operations for lung cancer. Methods: A literature search (in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Scopus) was performed from inception up to March 9, 2020, according to the methodology described in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. Results: We identified 3 articles relevant to the intraoperative phase of lung cancer operating room efficiency. All 3 were consistent in showing clinically relevant time reductions in the intraoperative phase or procedures relevant to this phase. The authors demonstrated that the application of various improvement methodologies resulted in a substantial reduction in operative time, which was associated with a reduction in complications, and improved staff morale. Conclusions: Our systematic review found that various improvement methodologies have the potential to significantly reduce operative time for lung cancer surgery. This increases the value of lung cancer surgery. These findings are consistent with the wider literature on improving surgical efficiency.