What is Bariatric Surgery?

Special Information for Patients

A life-changing experience!

Bariatric surgery is a medical treatment to control obesity, it’s been used for over the past 44 years and it’s considered nowadays as the only successful treatments for weight lose improving the quality of life.

The treatment consists in reducing the stomach capacity through several techniques (gastroplasty, gastric bypass, adjustable band, etc.), and by changing the intestinal path to stop absorbing fat during the digestive process.

In the past, this surgery was made through standard open surgery (laparotomy) dealing with high rate of mortality and posttraumatic diseases.

Nowadays the patient is intervened through small incisions (no larger than 6mm) where all surgery equipment, lights and cameras are inserted, which allow the doctors to perform with accuracy inside the abdominal cavity: therefore the patient enjoys a quicker painless recovery with minimum damage on the abdominal wall. Bariatric surgery by laparoscopy must be only performed by a qualified team (of at least two surgeons) with high level of training due to its complexity.

A surgeon will be considered up to the bariatric surgery after performing a minimum of 100 procedures; however, then he will become nothing but an advanced beginner; the optimum level will be achieved over the 9000 cases.

The American Society of Bariatric Surgery states that a high experienced level team would be the one who has performed over 400 cases and has made at least 320 surgeries per year. Our team has reported so far 9.000 cases of bariatric surgery, and perform between 80 and 100 surgeries on a monthly basis with a complication rate lower than 1%.

Another point related with the effectiveness and security of this procedure is technology. Not all the equipment is suitable to use in this kind of surgery. High resolution screens, cameras and lights, are needed besides high quality dissection and stapling instrumental.

The result of all of this is a high medical security level, less post-operative discomfort, quicker recovery times and a very high rate of successful surgeries.