Four-year weight outcomes of laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery and adjustable gastric banding among multiethnic adolescents

Background: Extreme obesity among U S adolescents is at serious problem and has disproportionally affected ethnic minorities Recently, surgical intervention for morbid obesity in adolescents has gained increasing support Little in is available on the long-term effectiveness of bariatric surgery among ethnic minority adolescents We have reported the weight and body mass index (BMI) results for a large cohort of predominantly Hispanic adolescents who underwent bariatric surgery in a private practice setting Methods: A retrospective medical chart analysis of 78 adolescents (77% Hispanic, 19% non-Hispanic white. 1% non-Hispanic black. and 3% other: 77% female, 16-19 years old), who had undergone gastric bypass or banding surgery from 2002 to 2009, was conducted All patients had met the National Institutes of Health criteria for bariatric surgery Repeated measures mixed linear modeling was used to assess the changes in weight/BMI from baseline to 4 years after surgery Results: Non-Hispanic whites had lost 104.81 lb and 17 29 BMI units at 1 year after surgery (P < 001 for both) Hispanics had lost 91 55 lb and 15 06 BMI units at 1 year after surgery (P < 001 for both) The non-Hispanic whites had lost 18 56 BMI units and Hispanics 16 15 units during the 4 year postoperative period A weight loss plateau occurred at 12 months for the non-Hispanic whites and at 18 months for the Hispanics; both groups had maintained their weight loss at 4 years after surgery Conclusion: Bariatric surgery resulted in significant weight loss that was maintained at 4 years postoperatively among obese ethnic minority adolescents Our results have shown that bariatric surgery is a safe and effective treatment option for permanent weight improvements in this demographic (Surg Obes Relat Dis 2(110,6 542-547) (c) 2010 American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery All rights reserved.