| Page 2 of 2 < |
Stomach Surgery's Risks Higher Than Were Believed
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Proponents saythe operations not only help obese patients lose significant amounts of weight, but also reverse many of the most serious obesity-related health problems. The safety of the procedures, however, has been the focus of intense concern, with reports of deaths and complications sparking investigations in several states and some insurers balking at paying for the operations.
To gather more accurate safety information, Flum and his colleagues analyzed data collected by Medicare on 16,155 patients who underwent the surgery from 1997 to 2002. The average age of the patients was 48.
Overall, 2 percent of patients died in the first month after surgery, nearly 3 percent died within the first three months and nearly 5 percent died within the first year, the researchers found. Previous reports have generally put the risk well below 1 percent. The risk was higher among men, and much higher among those 65 and older, putting those patients at nearly double the risk they would face from heart bypass and hip surgery, Flum said.
Most deaths result from infections or the stress of surgery, Flum said.
The procedure's supporters said the findings could be explained at least in part by the fact that Medicare patients tend to be older and sicker than the general population.
In the second study, David S. Zingmond of the University of California at Los Angeles and his colleagues analyzed data from 60,077 people who underwent surgery in California from 1995 to 2004. They found that about 8 percent were hospitalized in the year before the surgery, but nearly 20 percent were hospitalized in the year afterward.
Most of the hospitalizations were for complications from the surgery, such as nausea and dehydration, gallbladder problems or plastic surgery to remove excess flab.
The American Society of Bariatric Surgery has launched a program designed to minimize the risks by standardizing the procedures and certifying centers that have the most experienced surgeons, who tend to have better outcomes.
"This is the best way to get at the problems that these papers raise," said Walter Pories of East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. "There's no question that the mortality in some cases is higher than we would like, but it's still less for many of these patients than if they didn't have the surgery."
