Acute Postoperative Respiratory Failure after Retroperitoneal Robotic Surgery: A Case Series

Postoperative respiratory failure has several possible causes, including narcotic overdose, inadequate reversal of paralytics and patient disease state. We present a case series of three patients who suffered acute postoperative respiratory failure after right-sided retroperitoneal robotic surgery. We propose that each of these patients' respiratory drive was depressed by a different mechanism; hypercarbia from CO2 insufflations.