There are fewer complications from weight-loss surgery according to a study released this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Medical researchers from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, analyzed the data from 15,275 patients in Michigan, who underwent one of three types of weight-loss surgery. As expected, lap band surgery had the least complications (0.9%) followed by sleeve gastrectomy (2.2%) with gastric bypass complications at 3.6%.

As in any surgery, the more experience the hospital and your surgeon has in a particular type of surgery, the better the outcomes. “Rates of serious complications are inversely associated with average hospital and surgeon procedure volume,” researchers  noted. 

Volume and complication rates were defined as follows:

Hospital Volume/Rates of Complication 

• <150 cases annually     4.1%
• 150-299 cases/yr          2.7%
• >299 cases/yr                 2.3%        

Surgeon Volume/Rates of Complications

• <100 cases/yr                              3.8%
• 100-249 cases/yr                       2.4%
• >249 cases/yr                              1.9%

If you are considering weight loss surgery, it is quite reasonable to ask how many surgeries your sugeon has done and what his/her complication rates have been.  To read the abstract of the study, follow this link.

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