Patel R, et al. - Researchers examined data of 70,420 patients that underwent partial colectomies due to diverticulitis from the NSQIP 2005–2017 datasets in order to determine the benefits of minimally invasive colectomy for diverticulitis in patients with significant pre-operative respiratory comorbidities. Among these patients, 15,237 cases were identified as smokers, 3934 had dyspnea, and 3219 had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Observations revealed significantly greater odds of mortality, morbidity, wound complication, and return to the operating room among patients that had open procedures. The significantly lower average length of stay (5.34 vs 9.46 days for smokers; 6.84 vs 11.06 days for dyspnea; 7.41 vs 12.62 days for COPD) was evident for those who underwent laparoscopic procedures.