Patients Who are Delayed from Undergoing Bariatric Surgery Do Not have Improved Weight Loss

• Published in: Obesity surgery 2008-03, Vol.18 (3), p.278-281
• Main Authors: Madan, Atul K., Dhawan, Naveen, Coday, Mace, Tichansky, David S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Female; Gastric Bypass; Gastrointestinal surgery; Humans; Laparoscopy; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Obesity; Obesity, Morbid - surgery; Research Article; Surgery; Time Factors; Waiting period; Weight control; Weight Loss
• ISSN: 0960-8923; 1708-0428
• DOI: 10.1007/s11695-007-9385-7

Background Many patients have a prolonged wait time between initial surgeon visit and actual surgery day. Whereas there are various reasons for this, few have examined if patient wait time for bariatric surgery has any affect on weight loss. This investigation studies the hypothesis that patients who wait longer for bariatric surgery do not have improved weight loss over those with shorter wait times. Methods All patients in a private academic practice who underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass over a 6-month period were included in this study. The time from initial office visit to actual surgery date was calculated to be wait time (WT). Reasons for short or long WT were not investigated. The relationship between WT and percentage excess body weight loss (%EBWL) was examined. In addition, patients whose WT was greater than 6 months (WT > 6) were compared to those less than 6 months (WT 1 year follow-up. WT did not correlate with %EBWL ( r  = 0.09, p  = 0.37). There was no difference in %EBWL in the WT > 6 group versus the WT