Complications in Bariatric Surgery

Abstract

Bariatric surgery represents the most valid option to treat the chronic disease of morbid obesity and all its related comorbid conditions with the purpose to increase life expectancy. Despite multiple recommendations of the different scientific societies, bariatric surgery remains worldwide largely underused. Considering only a 16% rate of obesity disease, with the largest number of bariatric surgeries performed in Europe of 50k procedures a year, France should need more than 200 years to surgically approach all morbid obese patients. Similarly, in the United States, obesity is a chronic condition that affects more than 1 in 3 adults, with a mean number of 250k bariatric procedures a year, hence they would need 437 years to manage this population. Definitely, the bariatric surgery is very poorly used and there are several factors to explain it. Inadequate access to medical care and insufficient information provided by the general practitioner are frequently encountered in our practice. But the main limitation for the bariatric treatment remains the patients' "fear" of a surgical complication.

Keywords: bariatric surgery; bypass; complications; sleeve.