Higher Mortality Rates for Bariatric Surgery than Previously Noted
The Journal of the American Medical Association study, published in 2005, involved mortality rates for patients undergoing some form of bariatric, or gastric bypass, surgery. The study found that mortality rates were much higher for the surgery than previously believed, and that patients of surgeons who performed more bariatric surgeries per year experienced a lower mortality rate.
Now, Modern Healthcare, a publication targeted at healthcare businesses and executives, is reporting that bariatric surgery patients require more postoperative care and are more likely to develop complications than regular patients. One hospital closed its bariatric surgery unit entirely because the patients were overtaxing the hospital staff.
According to the article, bariatric surgeries are on the rise, with 171,000 operations performed in 2005. But the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that about 40 percent of bariatric surgery patients developed serious complications within six months of the operation.