Elie Chouillard1, Ronald Daher, MD1, Jean Biagini, MD2. 1PARIS POISSY MEDICAL CENTER, 2SAINT JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER
Introduction: Bariatric surgery is being safely performed in older patients. Quality of life and aggravation of sarcopenic obesity, however, have never been assessed in this subgroup of patients. This retrospective study aims to evaluate quality of life of older obese patients after surgery and to compare variations of their nutritional parameters to those of younger patients.
Methods and Procedures: Seventy-nine patients older than 60 years (Group1) were matched 1:2 with 158 patients younger than 50 years (Group 2) for comparison of nutritional parameters. A modified Impact of Weight on Quality Of Life (IWQOL) questionnaire was filled by all included patients, at the one-year check-up.
Results: The preoperative serum albumin and prealbumin levels were comparable between the two groups. Albumin values regained preoperative levels at six months in both groups intergroup comparison showed no significant difference. The serum prealbumin levels reached back the preoperative values at 12 and 6 months in Groups 1 and 2, respectively. Values were significantly lower in Group 1 comparatively to Group 2 at three and six months (0.18 versus 0.19; p=0.04 and 0.20 versus 0.21; p=0.03, respectively) but not at one year. Sixty-nine patients (87.3%) gave a total of 1860 answers in the modified IWQOL. Among them, 181 (9.7%) and 1422 (76.5%) were in favour of mild and marked improvements, respectively.
Conclusions: Bariatric surgery improves quality of life of older obese patients with no compromise of their nutritional status. In the lack of precise recommendations, this represents a major argument that may serve to the preoperative assessment of such patients.