Acute postoperative wound complications after gastric surgery for morbid obesity.

The acute postoperative wound complications of 225 morbidly obese patients undergoing gastric bypass were compared against the complications observed in 225 normal-sized individuals who underwent elective gastric resection for peptic ulcer disease. Not only were there more wound infections (8.9 percent to 5.3 percent) in the obese population, but these infections inflicted more serious complications and a significantly increased hospital stay. While the exact cause of the increase in infections in the obese patients is unclear, it is a real phenomenon to be dealt with in surgery for obesity.