Clinical significance of diabetes control before metabolic surgery.

BACKGROUND

Even though observational studies have suggested that poor preoperative diabetes control increases risk after major abdominal surgery, it is unclear whether this effect is seen in metabolic surgery patients.

OBJECTIVES

To determine whether poor preoperative diabetes control is associated with worse outcomes in patients with obesity and diabetes undergoing metabolic surgery.

SETTING

Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Quality Improvement Project (MBSAQIP) database.

METHODS

Using the MBSAQIP 2017 and 2018 database and preoperative glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) as a diabetes control surrogate, we examined the association between diabetes control and major outcomes of primary laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (SG) or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) in patients with diabetes and obesity. Multivariate logistic regression modeling examined five 30-day postoperative outcomes: composite serious complications (composite of 10 adverse events), composite infection (composite of 7 infectious complications), length of stay >5 days, reoperation, and readmission. Models were adjusted for multiple covariates.

RESULTS

In total, 26,674 patients with HbA1C data available within 30 days before metabolic surgery were included in the primary analysis and 35,884 patients with HbA1C data within 90 days before surgery were included in the sensitivity analysis. The mean body mass index (BMI) and preoperative HbA1C were 45.6 ± 8.2 kg/m and 8.2 ± 2.7%, respectively. The incidence of 30-day postoperative infections and serious complications were 1.62% and 1.35%, respectively. Neither primary analysis nor sensitivity analysis demonstrated any association between higher HbA1C and worsening of 5 primary outcomes of interest. The odds ratio of an overall effect for SG was 1.01 (95% CI .98-1.03; P = .58) and for RYGB was .99 (95% CI .96-1.02; P = .41).

CONCLUSION

Suboptimal preoperative diabetes control is not associated with increased adverse events and should not delay metabolic surgery, as metabolic surgery is generally a safe procedure and intrinsically improves diabetes control.