Sleeve Gastrectomy’s Benefits

Obese patients who have laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy keep the weight off in the long run, researchers found. In a single-center study, patients who underwent the procedure lost an average 57.4% of excessive body mass index (BMI) over 5 years, Ralph Peterli, MD, of Claraspital in Basel in Switzerland, and colleagues reported online in the journal Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases.

Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, “was initially intended to be a primary intervention in high-risk patients before laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or as the first step of biliopancreatic diversion duodenal switch,” the authors noted in their introduction. But evidence has been mounting that sleeve gastrectomy itself is an effective surgery for weight loss.

Recently joint guidelines from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the Obesity Society, and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery were revised to further support the use of the procedure. Psychiatric Times Journal recently alerted the mental health community of the AMA’s support of surgery as a way to combat obesity.

The study also showed that comorbidities improved considerably, with remission of type 2 diabetes in most of the patients who had the disease before the procedure. Among four insulin-dependent patients, only one still needed insulin therapy 5 years after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Two were able to switch to oral antidiabetic therapy, while one remained in full remission at 5 years, they reported. They concluded that sleeve gastrectomy is effective nearly 6 years after the initial operation, with nearly 60% of excessive BMI still gone and a “considerable improvement or even remission” of comorbidities. “Although sleeve gastrectomy was initially only carried out as the first part of a two-step procedure,” they wrote, “we could show that a rather small percentage needed a second-line procedure … for treatment of insufficient weight loss.”

Dr Kahlil Shillingford specializes in weight loss surgery and offers a comprehensive treatment team to aid patients with weight loss. He offers an all inclusive cash price of $10,500 for the procedure and is located in Boca Raton – Palm Beach County, Florida. His office is happy to assist patients and families with questions regarding the process.