Marcos Berry, MD, Lionel Urrutia, MD, José Quezada, MD. Clinica Las Condes
BACKGROUND: Obesity and cardiovascular disease are two of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Both are frequent problems in elderly patients. Weight loss induced by surgery has proven to be highly efficacious in treating obesity and its comorbidities. However nowadays the controversy exists regarding the effectiveness and safety of bariatric/metabolic surgery in elderly patients. We present our results of elderly patients who underwent bariatric surgery at a high volume center in Chile over the last 10 years.
METHODS: From 2006 to 2015, 28 elderly patients over 64 years old underwent bariatric surgery at Clinica Las Condes, a large private medical center in Chile. All of them were assessed by a multidisciplinary team and discussed in a Committee. All patients either underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) or Roux en Y Gastric bypass (RYGB).
RESULTS: Over this period the number of patients for each surgery were: 23 LSG and 5 patients RYGB. The average age and BMI were 67 (range 65 – 71) and 35 (range 30 – 42), similar for both procedures. All patients had 3 or more comorbidities and the most frequent were dyslipidemia and hypertension. No complications neither mortality were reported for both procedures. Mean excess weight loss at 1 year F/U was 72% for both procedures, 67% for LSG group and 77% for RYGB. Between hypertension patients 33% achieve resolution of their pathology, 50% between the dyslipidemic patients and 50% between the diabetics.
CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic bariatric surgery is safe and very effective procedure in obese elderly patients, similar to younger patients. We recommend it for this group of patients, especially that the life expectancy in western countries is well above 80 years old.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 80124
Program Number: P491
Presentation Session: Poster (Non CME)
Presentation Type: Poster
