Patients and doctors alike should be reassured by the results of a recently completed study on the safety of weight loss surgery. According to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers compared three popular weight loss procedures and found that “bariatric surgery safety is actually quite good” when performed by a skilled surgeon.

Even though weight loss surgery is considered the most effective treatment currently available for extreme obesity, some primary care doctors have been reluctant to recommend it to their obese patients because of safety concerns. Weight loss surgery is not risk free, but neither is extreme obesity. The health consequences of obesity are serious and life-threatening.

The study looked at 4,776 patients in the first month of having one of three bariatric procedures – open Roux-en-Y, laparoscopic Roux-en-Y, or laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding.

The highest complication rates were seen with open surgery, due in large part to the fact that the patients are higher risk to begin with. Many surgeons will not perform a laparoscopic procedure on patients with health factors that put them at too great a risk. The gastric banding patients had the lowest rate of complications.

All procedures combined, one in 24 patients (4.3%) had a serious complication and one in 333 patients (0.3%) died within 30 days after the surgery.

By procedure, the possibility for serious complications, including blood clots, the need for follow-up surgery or death, was 1% for gastric banding, 4.8% for lap Roux-en-Y, and 7.8% for open Roux-en-Y. None of the gastric banding patients died within the first 30 days, while 1 in 500 died following lap Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and 1 in 47 after open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

The complication rates are similar to other types of surgery, and although the results are not perfect, it shows that the safety of bariatric surgery has improved over the years.

The study identified four factors that contributed to the increased risk of complications within the first 30 days after surgery; patients with sleep apnea, a very high BMI, a history of blood clots, and those who could not walk a distance of at least 200 feet.

There are also several factors that lower the risk of complications, including; having the surgery performed by a skilled surgeon, the expertise of the hospital staff, surgical equipment, the anesthesiologists’ skill and experience with obese patients, and if a patient is able to lose 10% of excess weight before surgery.

Hopefully this study will give doctors and patients the reassurance they need to consider weight loss surgery in cases of extreme obesity. Weight loss surgery can be life-saving.