Comment on: Chronic abdominal pain and quality of life after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy - a cross-cohort analysis of two prospective longitudinal observational studies.

Abstract

I would like to congratulate the authors on their article “Chronic abdominal pain and quality of life after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy – a cross-cohort analysis of two prospective longitudinal observational studies”[ 1 Chahal-Kummen M Vage V Mala T Chronic abdominal pain and quality of life after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy – a cross-cohort analysis of two prospective longitudinal observational studies. Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2023; Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar ]. In this study from Norway, the authors compare the occurrence of chronic abdominal pain (CAP) in patients that underwent laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) to sleeve gastrectomy (SG) patients. There were two different institutions involved in the study. The authors should be commended on their high rate of follow-up of 85% at two years as this is rarely seen in the United States. They found that in patients undergoing RYGB, CAP was present in 28/236 (11.9%) patients at baseline and in 60/209 (28.7%) patients at follow-up (p<0.001). For SG patients, 2/223 (14.3%) had baseline CAP and 50/186 (26.9%), at follow-up (p<0.001). The authors concluded that there was an increase in CAP after RYGB and SG, with SG patients having an increase in reflux related symptoms and RYGB patients having more diarrhea and indigestion symptoms. I also found it interesting that roughly half of the long-term complications listed were gallbladder related. Although symptomatic gallstones are technically a ‘complication’, they are usually easily handled laparoscopically, and I would consider a laparoscopic cholecystectomy almost as a health maintenance issue given the high incidence in the population of patients that suffer from obesity. Chronic abdominal pain and quality of life after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy – a cross-cohort analysis of two prospective longitudinal observational studiesSurgery for Obesity and Related DiseasesPreviewChronic abdominal pain (CAP) after bariatric surgery is not extensively explored and may impact the postoperative outcomes. Full-Text PDF Open Access