Does Laparoscopic Lens Contamination Effect Operative Time? A study on the Frequency and Duration of Lens Contamination and Commonly Used Measures to Maintain Clear Vision

INTRODUCTION Laparoscopy surgical procedures are increasing day by day.Laparoscopic lens contamination is most common problem occurring in laparoscopic surgery. This lens fogging results in increase per operative time. Many techniques are available to improve vision during laparoscopy. These include anti fog solutions, touching a visceral organ, use of warm water or scope warmer, sterile cloth can be used which can be dry or wet. MATERIALS AND METHODS It was a cross sectional study conducted in general surgery department Gulab Devi Hospital Lahore from January 2022 to July 2022. A total of 70 patient undergoing laparoscopic surgery were recruited in this study. Operative time, duration of time lens remained cleaned or dirty, time wasted during cleaning, methods used for cleaning of lens and there time duration and causes of lens contamination were the variables of this study. RESULTS Total operative time in all 70 laparoscopic procedures was found to equate to 53 hours and 13 minutes with a mean of 43.8 ± 8.3 minutes. A total of 288 lens contamination events were observed in all these operations with an average of 4.11 lens contamination events per case. According to study an average, 60.9% of the operational time lens remained clear, 31.2% of the operational time lens remained contaminated and 7.92% of the operative time was spent in cleaning the laparoscope. CONCLUSION Our study demonstrates that a significant period of a laparoscopic surgery is performed with foggy display. A lot of time is wasted in lens cleaning which can be saved by reducingcontamination using perfect techniques to clean lens.