Systematic Review of Intraoperative Assessment Tools in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery

OBJECTIVE: To collect, summarize, and evaluate the currently available intraoperative rating tools used in abdominal minimally invasive gynecologic surgery (MIGS). DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, and Scopus databases from January 1, 2000, to May 12, 2020. METHODS OF STUDY SELECTION: A systematic search strategy was designed and executed. Published studies evaluating an assessment tool in abdominal MIGS cases were included. Studies focused on simulation, reviews, and abstracts without a published manuscript were excluded. Risk of bias and methodological quality were assessed for each study. TABULATION, INTEGRATION, AND RESULTS: Disparate study methods prevented quantitative synthesis of the data. Ten studies were included in the analysis. The tools were grouped into global (n = 4) and procedure-specific assessments (n = 6). Most studies evaluated small numbers of surgeons and lacked a comparison group to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool. All studies demonstrated content validity and at least 1 dimension of reliability, and 2 have external validity. The intraoperative procedure-specific tools have been more thoroughly evaluated than the global scales. CONCLUSION: Procedure-specific intraoperative assessment tools for MIGS cases are more thoroughly evaluated than global tools; however, poor-quality studies and borderline reliability limit their use. Well-designed, controlled studies evaluating the effectiveness of intraoperative assessment tools in MIGS are needed.