Five-year results of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy for the treatment of severe obesity

Background Since 2011, the most used bariatric technique in France has been the sleeve gastrectomy. There are still few studies exploring the medium and long-term results of this technique. Objective To describe medium–long-term (5 years) results of a cohort of CHU Montpellier experience in sleeve gastrectomy for morbid obesity. Methods All patients that underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) from January 2005 to June 2013 were included in this study. Results A total of 1050 patients were operated. 72.86% were women. The mean preoperative BMI was 44.58 kg/m 2 (±7.71). A total of 183 patients (18.5%) were super-obese (BMI > 50 kg/m 2 ). LSG was proposed as primary procedure, and also after failure of adjustable gastric banding in 169 patients (16.9%) or after vertical banded gastroplasty in 7 cases (0.7%). There were 38 postoperative gastric fistulas (3.8%) and 3 of them required some kind of bypass to be definitively treated. There were also 34 hemorrhages (3.4%) of which 21 were reoperated for hemostasis. Two gastric stenoses at the angulus (0.2%) were managed with dilation or RYGB. Overall reoperative rate was 6.8%. One patient died of pulmonary embolism. Most common late complication was GERD (39.1%). After 3, 4 and 5 years of LSG, the average of %EBL was, respectively, 75.95% (±29.16) (382 patients), 73.23% (±31.08) (222 patients) and 69.26% (±30.86) (144 patients). The success rate at 5 years was 65.97% (95 patients). The improvement or remission of comorbidities was found, respectively, in 88.4 and 57.2% of diabetic patients; 76.9 and 19.2% for hypertensive patients and 98 and 85% for patients with sleep apnea syndrome. Conclusion LSG is a bariatric surgery technique that presents a very good risk/benefit ratio. Five-year results are very convincing. GERD is the main long-term complication.