Please tell me they're wrong! - ThinnerTimes

tim5ny · 05-23-2007, 09:41 AM

From an online article from "Prevention" magazine. Please tell me that the numbers are wrong!

According to a University of Minnesota review of research on 22,000 patients, 1 out of every 200 dies within 30 days of the surgery. And 2 to 3 percent will suffer a life-threatening complication such as a leak in the intestines, a blood clot, or internal bleeding.

Baron Patrick · 05-23-2007, 09:56 AM

Keep in mind the surgeons who participate when doing survey's like this. If a surgeon is not board certified, or is new at this (less than 300 surgeries - minimum), the numbers will rise because of their inexperience. Check your own surgeons statistics, how many has he done, how many have had complications, and mortality rate. My surgeon has a few thousand under his belt, and very low mortality and complication rate. I have complete trust in him. You can go to obesityhelp.com or the bariatric board web site and check your surgeon.

tim5ny · 05-23-2007, 09:57 AM

Thank you Baron! I will check.

paige52 · 05-23-2007, 09:59 AM

That seems a little extreme.. keep in mind that statistics can be skewed depending on where you track your information.

I know my surgeon has done over 1500 surgeries and has only had one death and that was due to complication the person had with their heart and blood clots. Since they started sending you home with Lovenox injections that complication has decreased dramatically.

ALso I have Blue Cross PPO insurance and they have this program where an RN tracks your progress over a period of 3 years with check in calls monthly. She deals with over 250 paitents personaly, there are 15 nurses that do this, and she has had zero deaths, 1 person who was critically ill and still in the hospital after 9 months and 2 people that had long term complications with food intolerance and nausea and malnurishment, I'm one of them.

Other than that she said most people have minor transitional complications strictures, transient nausea that goes away after 12 weeks but the 3 I listed above are the only longer term ones.

try looking at obesityhelp.com

lealphachienne · 05-23-2007, 10:02 AM

here's the stats from asbs.org

"IBSR 2004-2005 Winter Report 19(1) included data from 43,530 patients whose primary operation occurred between 1986 and early 2005. The focus of this report was 30-day complication rates, and a subset of 38,501 patient records with complete information for perioperative complications and postoperative hospital stay was analyzed for “dominant 30-day complication.”3 It was found that 87.2% (33,541/ 38,501) of the patients had no 30-day complication, 3.4% had a “major” 30-day complication and 9.5% a “minor” complication. The most frequently reported major 30-day complication was GI leak (0.7%, 258 / 38,501) and the most frequently reported minor complication was wound drainage, seroma or infection (1.8%, 682 / 38,501). “No complication” within 30-days of the primary operation was reported for 86.42% for patients with bypass procedures, 89.36 % for restrictive procedures with no bypass (Table 1). The most frequent “major” complications for bypass patients were GI leak (0.73%), GI hemorrhage or bleeding (0.44%), and small bowel obstruction (0.40%). Simple restrictive procedures with no bypass were reported to have GI leak (0.47%) and stoma obstruction or stenosis (0.35%) as the most frequent defined major complication."

he risk of operative death was low for these 38,501 patients. Ninety three deaths were reported to have occurred within 30 days of operation, for a 30-day mortality rate of 0.24%. Pulmonary embolism was the most frequently reported cause of death (n=28) within 30-days of a primary bariatric procedure for weight loss, followed by major cardiac events (n=17) and GI leak (n=15). The mortality rate of bypass procedures was found to be twice that of simple restrictive procedures (0.27% vs. 0.14%). After adjusting for year of operation, age at time of operation, operative BMI, and gender, using multiple logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio of death following a bypass operation was 2.1 times that following a simple restrictive operation (p=0.0343; OR: 2.07; 95% CI: 1.06, 4.08).

In the most recent IBSR survi val analysis (2003), with an average follow-up of 8.3 years, patients with complex bypass compared with simple restrictive operations performed from 1986 to 1999 were equally likely to survive.4 Operative age, gender, BMI, history of smoking, diabetes, and hypertension were significant predictors of survi val, however.

"Risk and efficacy of operations for obesity must be understood in the context that severe obesity is a chronic, frequently progressive, life threatening disease. The therapeutic program applied should be designed to be beneficial throughout the patient’s lifetime. Long term follow-up is essen tial when reporting treatment effectiveness.5 The IBSR can obtain death information through the National Death Index, but other important long-term data must be gathered from patients by their surgeons and staff. "

tim5ny · 05-23-2007, 10:17 AM

Thanks! That sounds better to me.

As far as finding info about my surgeon at obesityhelp.com, he's not registered with them so they had no info. I just got done pm'ing campusman here at the forum because he used my surgeon. I want to know what he thinks.

update: after Googling "DR. Graber" instead of "DR. William Graber" like I did previously, I got alot of hits, including many pages of patient testimonials about him at Obesityhelp.com on their forum. They all seem to worship him and his abilities as a surgeon. I feel alot better now!

Baron Patrick · 05-23-2007, 10:51 AM

So, Marie, in other words, the more obese you are, and the more co-morbidities you have, the higher your risk is. I would think these stats are a little compromised because each person is different?

An MO person with a BMI of 50+ with multiple co-morbidities compared to one with a 40 BMI and one co-morbidity can be a significant difference?

On top of that, will the post-op patient follow the rules for the first 30 or 60 days? How much of an impact can that make on a study like this?

There are so many factors, it can really boggle the mind!

LisaBoston · 05-23-2007, 12:31 PM

My doctor doesn't take high risk patients and limits the age and size of the person. I guess it comes down to his statistics. He hasn't lost a patient for a very long time and the one that I know of died from complications that may not be related to his surgery. (CCap issues)

cnvh · 05-23-2007, 12:52 PM

I heard the 1-in-200 number before surgery, and it scared me too... but there are risks for ALL surgeries, and let's face it-- gastric bypass is usually not performed on people at the pinnacle of health in the first place. Most of us go into this with heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. Anytime you put a person under the knife who's already unhealthy to begin with, the chances of complications is OF COURSE going to increase.

So the moral of the story is, go into surgery as healthy as you possibly can (start an exercise program, lose some weight, etc.), and choose a surgeon who has done the procedure hundreds of times (with great success and low complication rates, of course-- and YES you CAN ask about this stuff). Beyond that, there's not much more you can do... but remember, the numbers are a bit "skewed" to begin with, just considering the population who HAS this surgery.

kittens4 · 05-23-2007, 01:34 PM

In my opinion, it's a crap shoot! You just can't predict. You always hope you won't be the one with complications. I was the one, but recovered fairly quickly, and feel great today. I feel that even though I had problems, I would have had way worse problems down the road from being 100+ pounds overweight!!! You can't go through life carrying that weight around and not have it take it's toll. The other stat you need to consider is that out of 11 people who are 100+ pounds overweight, only 1 of them will live to be over 65! Look around....do you see a lot of people over 70 who are fat? Not so much....because they are all dead. I know none of us are getting out of this life alive, but I feel my quality of life will be much better for having had this surgery.