Obesity Surgery: November 2006 Archives

New York, Nov 26 - In-hospital outcomes of weight-loss surgery, also known as "bariatric" surgery, vary widely from one institution to another, and it appears that hospitals that perform the most procedures have the lowest complication rates, according to the First Annual HealthGrades Bariatric Surgery Trends in American Hospitals Study.

HealthGrades, located in Golden, Colorado, rates physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes, and makes this information available on their web site. The company's healthcare ratings are used by consumers, hospitals, employers and their health plans, liability insurers, and physicians.

In what they call "the first study of its kind," the company used hospital discharge data between 2002 through 2004 to assess in-hospital outcomes of bariatric surgeries. Most of the procedures were gastric bypass or key-hole (laparoscopic) procedures.

One day in September a surgeon cut Andre Corbeil from hip to hip and removed seven kilograms of skin.

It wasn’t a tummy tuck. It was a post-bariatric panniculectomy, a procedure to remove folds of excess skin and flabby tissue Corbeil was left with after he lost half his weight following bariatric, or “stomach-stapling”, surgery.

Bariatric surgery may be life transforming, but it transforms people only halfway. Once the weight comes off, people are left with drooping, deflated bellies, chests, breasts, legs, thighs, arms, faces, necks and buttocks.

CHICAGO, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The risk of complications such as bleeding and infection in patients undergoing an increasingly popular weight-loss surgery varies drastically based on which hospital performs it, a large study released on Monday found.

The study of 86,520 procedures found that patients undergoing so-called bariatric surgery at a highly-rated hospital are 66 percent less likely to suffer from a complication, including bleeding, pneumonia, and heart problems, than at a poorly-rated hospital.

The poll comes as obese Americans - about one-third of the population -- are increasingly turning to bariatric surgery to shed weight. The number of surgeries has quadrupled since 2000, reaching 171,000 in 2005, according to the American Society of Bariatric Surgery.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – NewHope Bariatrics, a startup focused on tackling the exploding problem of obesity in the United States, has $18.5 million in new financing to serve as a war chest.

NewHope has plenty of opportunity for growth, too. The latest statistics from the federal government estimate that more than 60 percent of all adults are overweight, and of those more than 30 percent are obese.

The company, which was founded by two former top officials at MedCath in 2005, plans to use the funds to open surgery centers that will offer treatment for obesity.

NewHope Bariatrics will focus on a type of surgery known as LapBand. The procedure involves the use of gatric bands.