| |
|
|
|
Laparoscopic Banding Benefits and Risks
Benefits:
The gastric band helps to reduce the amount of food that you eat.
It acts like a belt round the top portion of your stomach, creating
a small pouch. This means that you will feel full after eating only
a small quantity of food.
The gastric banding technique has been used successfully
for many years and offers several advantages:
-
It is
adjustable - the adjustability of the band gives you and your
doctor control to achieve weight loss without creating too many
unpleasant symptoms due to the degree of restriction
-
It is
placed laparoscopically – this means that you can return
to work soon after the operation with a minimal recovery time
-
It is
reversible – taking the band out would revert the stomach
back to its normal size and you would therefore probably gain
weight again. For this reason it is usually planned to leave
the band around your stomach permanently.
Laparoscopic Banding is often the preferred choice of patients as
it is less invasive using only very small cuts on the abdominal surface.
This subsequently means that recovery time is quicker and pain is
minimal. Compared to other bariatric procedures, patients have a shorter
operative time, less blood loss and a shorter hospital stay. It is
also known that complications are less likely to occur following this
type of surgery. Cosmetically, the procedure does not leave large
scars and from a practical point of view, patients are able to return
to work and other normal activities earlier than some of the other
procedures would allow.
Research indicates that patients undergoing laparoscopic gastric bypass
had statistically significant greater weight loss up to 4 years, but
at 5 years, there was no statistical difference in percent excess
weight loss between laparoscopic gastric bypass and laparoscopic banding.
The study also concluded that laparoscopic gastric bypass patients
had significantly more major complications than laparoscopic banding
patients (10% vs. 5%, respectively).
Risks of Lap Band/Gastric Banding
Complications are rare, however, is important to make you aware
of any potential complications before surgery. As with all invasive
procedures, there are some risks involved. Any foreign body inserted
into the abdomen does not come without having to consider some possible
complications.
These may include the following:
- Leakage from band site which may require further surgery
- Ulceration
- Gastritis (irritated stomach tissue)
- Erosion—the band may wear away a small area on the outside
of the stomach which can lead to migration of the band to the
inside of the stomach.
- Slippage—an unusual occurrence in which the lower part
of the stomach may prolapse over the band and cause an obstruction.
- Band placement - (too high or low on stomach) - Extensive vomiting
during the early postoperative period. Patients must undergo a
second operation to reposition the band.
- There is a very small chance develop pneumonia in post operative
period which may require a longer stay in hospital and treatment
with antibiotics.
We
pride ourselves with the fact that we care for your wellbeing and
all of the advantages and disadvantages of any procedure that you
are considering to undertake will be discussed during your Consultation
with the Surgeon. We are committed to each and every patient and
we want to ensure that you are armed with all of the necessary information
to help you to make the right choices.
|
 |
|
|
