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Laparoscopic Surgery For Patients With Severe Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, Talal S. Alzahrani, Victor S. Saxena, Alexander Cho, Guillermo Gutierrez

GW Research Days 2015

Introduction: Laparoscopy is a minimally invasive procedure that associated with decreased morbidity and hospital stays. There are over two million laparoscopic surgeries performed annually in the US. Several studies have shown that patients with mild (Stage I) to moderate (Stage II) Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) develop hypercapnia during laparoscopy procedures. However, hypercapnia in this population did not affect the rate of complication or prolonged hospital stay. We report a case of very severe (Stage IV) COPD, who developed an acute respiratory failure with an increase in hospital stay during a laparoscopic procedure. We write this to bring awareness to …