Safety and efficacy of bariatric surgery in Mexico: A detailed analysis of 500 surgeries performed at a high-volume center.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

Bariatric surgery is the best method for treating obesity and its comorbidities. Our aim was to provide a detailed analysis of the perioperative outcomes in Mexican patients that underwent surgery at a high-volume hospital center.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A retrospective study was conducted on all the patients that underwent bariatric surgery at a single hospital center within a time frame of 4 and one-half years. Demographics, the perioperative variables, complications (early and late), weight loss, failure, and type 2 diabetes mellitus remission were all analyzed.

RESULTS

Five hundred patients were included in the study, 83.2% of whom were women. Mean patient age was 38.8 years and BMI was 44.1kg/m. The most common comorbidities were high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and diabetes. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery was performed in 85.8% of the patients, sleeve gastrectomy in 13%, and revision surgeries in 1%. There were 9.8% early complications and 12.2% late ones, with no deaths. Overall weight loss as the excess weight loss percentage at 12 and 24 months was 76.9 and 77.6%. The greatest weight loss at 12 months was seen in the patients that underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass. A total of 11.4% of the patients had treatment failure. In the patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 68.7% presented with complete disease remission and 9.3% with partial remission. There was improvement in 21.8% of the cases.

CONCLUSIONS

In our experience at a high-volume hospital center, bariatric surgery is safe and effective, based on the low number of adverse effects and consequent weight loss and type 2 diabetes mellitus control. Long-term studies with a larger number of patients are needed to determine the final impact of those procedures.