Experience counts with weight loss surgery

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

The rate of complications in gastric bypass surgery goes down if the operation is done at a center with some experience of the procedure.
Gastric bypass surgery, which is done for morbid obesity, is not without risk. Demand for the operation has gone up 644 per cent in the last decade, say doctors at Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston. They now report on how the complication rate for laparoscopic gastric bypass changes as experience is gained.

The study involved 750 surgeries on morbidly obese patients at the Tufts Center between 1998 and 2004. Overall, the complication rate was 15 per cent and death rate was 0.3 per cent. But for the first 100 cases done, the complication rate was 26 per cent and the death rate one per cent. Thereafter, the rates fell. Gastric bypass surgery is complicated and the morbidly obese are a high risk group. This study suggests it might be a good idea to perform such surgery at a few specialized centers where the doctors have experience of the procedure.

Source
Archives of Surgery April 2005 Volume 140 pages 362-367

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