Surgery to Reduce Obesity Results in Low Death Rates
A research of patients who have undergone plastic surgery to shift excess weight conducted in Sweden has shown that occurrences of death after the operation are rare.
Researchers investigated nearly 15,000 cases of weight reduction surgery performed in Sweden between 1980 and 2005.
They estimated that only 0.2 per cent of patients faced fatal complications within 30 days after the surgery; 0.3 per cent within 90 days of surgery; and 0.5 per cent of patients died within one year after the operation.
The author of the study Dr Richard Marsk who works for Stockholm’s Danderyd Hospital, reported to Reuters Health: “Most published series are from high-volume expert centres. We have shown that bariatric surgery can be performed with low mortality on a national level.”
The research, which can be found in the Annals of Surgery publication, shows that patients who are older than 50 face higher chance of dying after an obesity operation than younger patients.
Moreover, the death rates in male patients are thought to be slightly higher than in female patients. Dr Marsk links this tendency to the fact that men are more likely to suffer from advanced heart disease than women by the time they undergo the operation.
In addition, another research which was published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology has revealed that weight loss surgery can be a way to fight liver diseases connected to obesity.
