What Risks Do You Run With Gastric Lap Banding?

Obesity surgery has seen tremendous advances in the past 50 years and modern forms of surgery like gastric lap banding are certainly a lot safer and have many fewer complications than early forms of open gastric bypass surgery. All the same, there are still risks and these need to be fully discussed with your surgeon before you embark on surgery.

Gastric lap band surgery has several risks that are specific to this form of surgery and also has the same risks which come will any major surgery. Additionally, there are some general risks that are seen with any surgery involving patients who are overweight.

The first and most serious risk is that of death occurring either during surgery or immediately following and directly related to surgery. At this early stage (gastric lap band surgery has been around for approximately 13 years now and has only been licensed for use in the United States since 2001) there have been very few deaths reported and it is not easy to give a figure, though it is generally held that the risk of death from gastric lap band surgery is less than 1%.

One interesting thing to note is that in one Australian study no deaths were reported in a group of 2,700 patients who have had laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery since 1994. It should be noted however that Australia has been a leader in establishing the use of the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band and that over ninety percent of all weight loss surgeries carried out in Australia are now using this method. This is important as, when you interpret the data from this particular study, you have to bear in mind that the experience of the surgeon is an extremely important factor in terms of both risk and complication. Surgeons with a great deal of experience with this technique show a far higher rate of success.

Many of the risks encountered during the course of surgery are general rather than lap band specific and are common risks to do with such things as your age, weight, reaction to anesthetic and the existence of disease (whether such disease is or is not directly associated with your weight problem). The chief lap band specific risk during the course of surgery is that of gastric perforation (a tear occurring in the wall of the stomach) which occurs in about 1% of all cases.

The vast majority of complications will occur after surgery and most patients will run into some form of complication in the weeks after their operation. Such complications will not necessarily be serious and will range from mild to severe.

Around half of patients will suffer varying degrees of nausea and vomiting and approximately one-third of patients will also experience regurgitation (gastroesophageal reflux). About a quarter of patients will suffer band slippage and roughly one patient in seven will suffer a blockage to the passage joining the two parts of the stomach.

Other moderate to severe problems after surgery include erosion of the band into the wall of the stomach and twisting or leakage of the access port. Difficulty in swallowing, constipation and diarrhea are also fairly common.

In a very few patients (under one percent) a whole series of non-serious difficulties can arise including gastritis, hiatal hernia, inflammation of the pancreas, dehydration, abdominal pain, gas, chest pain and infection.

Generally speaking lap band surgery, especially when performed laparoscopically, has fewer risks than other forms of weight loss surgery, but the risks are still substantial and need to be discussed in detail with your surgeon and understood before you take any decision to have surgery.