Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is a surgical modality that is being used frequently in the past few years to treat morbid obesity. The operation is the first half of the duodenal switch operation. The duodenal switch is an operation that temporarily restrict the stomach capacity to give initial weight loss and by the time the stomach dilates and patients eat more the second part of the operation which is malabsorption helps the patient to maintain the lost weight. The principle of using sleeve gastrectomy alone was postulated in extremely obese patients to make the first operation easy and complete the second part of the operation after achieving some weight loss. Unfortunately patients are being told that it could alone to achieve permanent weight loss.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are no long term results of such procedure but obesity surgery past experience with similar procedures (simple restriction LapBands, VBG) show that ultimately almost all patients gain the weight again. So few more years will show a lot of failed procedures.
Most of the patients did not come back to complete the operation and failed to lose enough weight.
Theoretically sleeve gastrectomy is the only irreversible operation in obesity surgery( banding, stapling, bypass are all reversible) since most of the stomach is removed but in reality it is a self reversing operation and if you give it enough time it will dilated and then weight regain will happen.
It is one of the major issues with the sleeve that can lead to severe heart burn.
Yes a gastric bypass or a completion to duodenal switch laparoscopically is the treatment.
