Sagittal Abdominal Diameter is a Better Predictor than Body Mass Index for Duration of Laparoscopic Left Colectomy

Background Visceral obesity (VO) increases technical difficulty in laparoscopic surgery. The body mass index (BMI) does not always correlate to intra-abdominal fat distribution. Our hypothesis was that simple anthropometric measures that reflect VO, could predict technical difficulty in laparoscopic colorectal surgery, as reflected by the operative time, more accurately than the BMI.