Bariatric Surgery Decreases the Risk of Non-traffic Accident-Related Fractures in Patients with Obesity: Real-world Data from Taiwan.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of bariatric surgery on non-traffic accident-related fractures in patients with obesity.

METHODS

This retrospective cohort study was conducted using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Patients aged 18 to 55 years with obesity diagnosis between 2003 and 2008 were enrolled and divided into two groups: non-surgical and bariatric surgery groups. Patients with endocrine bone disease and malignancy history were excluded. Healthy patients were also randomly selected from the database and assigned to the general population group. The development of fracture was the primary end point. All patients were followed until the end of 2013 or death, whichever came first.

RESULTS

After propensity score matching, 1322, 1322, and 4359 subjects were included in the bariatric surgery (BS), non-surgical (NS), and general population (GP) groups, respectively. Based on multivariate analysis, the risk of overall fractures is similar between the BS group (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.774, p = 0.164) and the NS group; nevertheless, the risk of overall fractures was higher in the BS group (HR = 2.210, p<0.001) than in the GP group. The BS group had a significantly lower risk of non-traffic accident-related fractures (HR = 0.542, p = 0.010) than the NS group but a higher risk of non-traffic accident-related fractures (HR = 1.693, p = 0.023) than the GP group.

CONCLUSIONS

Bariatric surgery may decrease the risk of non-traffic accident-related fractures; however, the risk remains higher in patients with obesity than in the general population.