The Gastric Sleeve Is A Very Popular Option
Author: Donald Saunders
Category: Health
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The gastric sleeve, which is also often known as the vertical sleeve gastrectomy or simply the sleeve gastrectomy, has been performed for many years and bariatric surgeons often carry out the procedure as the first procedure in a two part weight loss surgical process.
For those patients who are seriously obese with a BMI greater than 60 conventional gastric bypass surgery, such as the roux-en-y, holds unacceptably high risks as a result of which the gastric sleeve is carried out as this operation can generally be performed laparoscopically with very little risk. Then, as soon as you have lost enough weight, a second procedure in the form of classical gastric bypass surgery may be carried out.
In the past few years the view of the gastric sleeve has altered and it is now being used more and more as a stand-alone operation that is capable by itself of producing results which are similar to those seen with lap band surgery.
For those patients who are worried about lap band surgery because of concerns about having a foreign body put into their abdominal cavity, the gastric sleeve can be an appealing choice. Similarly, it also presents an option for those people who are worried about possible long-term side effects of classical gastric bypass surgery such as anemia, obstruction of the intestine, ulcers and vitamin and protein deficiency to name just a few.
Yet another group of people for whom the vertical sleeve gastrectomy can be a life-saver are those individuals who have an existing medical condition which rules out traditional obesity surgery. Individuals for example who have Crohn's disease, anemia, Lupus and a whole variety of other medical conditions.
The gastric sleeve is a restrictive rather than a malabsorption operation and creates weight loss by restricting how much you can eat. As a purely restrictive form of surgery weight loss is slower than it would be in the case of bypass surgery however you avoid several of the side effects and complications linked to bypass surgery. Despite the fact that there is no long-term data currently available for the gastric sleeve as a stand-alone operation initial studies indicate that high BMI patients (with a BMI of 50 to 60) can expect to lose about half of their excess weight in the year after surgery. This figure increases to over two-thirds of excess weight for lower BMI people (with a BMI of between 30 and 40).
In obesity surgery terms the vertical sleeve gastrectomy comes between the gastric band and the gastric bypass and can be a good option for people whose general health makes gastric bypass surgery inadvisable and for a lot of patients it can result in sufficient weight loss to make a very significant difference to their overall state of health and their lifestyle.
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Keywords: gastric sleeve, sleeve gastrectomy, vertical sleeve gastrectomy, weight loss surgery, obesity surgery
View Count: 270
Date Submitted: 11/17/2009
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