According to new research, adolescents who underwent sleeve gastrectomy, a type of weight-loss surgery that involves removing part of the stomach, were less likely to visit the emergency room or be admitted to the hospital in the five years following their operations than those who had their stomachs divided into pouches through gastric bypass surgery.
The rates of complications, death, and subsequent surgery were comparable in both groups, according to a study published in JAMA by University of Michigan researchers. All of the patients studied were covered by Medicaid, the nation’s largest health insurance provider for those under the age of 19.
“Prior research had found that sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass resulted in significant weight loss and low complication rates in adolescents with severe obesity,” said Ryan Howard, M.D., a general surgery resident at the University of Michigan Health. “But the comparative outcomes of these two procedures, which might help inform health insurance policy and decision-making, had yet to be explored for adolescents insured by Medicaid.”
Prior research had found that sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass resulted in significant weight loss and low complication rates in adolescents with severe obesity. But the comparative outcomes of these two procedures, which might help inform health insurance policy and decision-making, had yet to be explored for adolescents insured by Medicaid.
Ryan Howard
The researchers identified just over 1,110 patients who had undergone one of the two weight-loss surgeries between 2012 and 2018, a relatively small number compared to the more than 95,000 patients covered by Medicare who had either gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy in the same time period.
Howard says the disparity could be due to access issues or concerns about bariatric surgery as a weight-loss treatment for youth.
Childhood obesity is a global epidemic and a major public health concern that affects people of all ethnicities and nationalities. Childhood obesity increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases, psychiatric morbidity, and mortality in adulthood. Furthermore, the economic burden it places on the healthcare system is significant.
Severe obesity among adolescents is on the rise, which is a cause for concern and presents a significant treatment challenge. Conservative measures have modest effects on weight loss and usually fail to achieve long-term weight loss and comorbidity resolution. This has increased the use of bariatric surgery (BS), which provides a rapid reduction in body mass index with few perioperative complications.
