Laparoscopy Hospital Blog

This week was a very interesting week at Laparoscopy Hospital as we had a lecture and workshop on bariatric surgery through laparoscopic technique. Everyone in the class was attentive to know about different method of weight reducing procedure including gastric banding, gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy. Laparoscopic obesity surgery is a sure result of advancement in technology in the field of medicine. This weight reducing surgery is gaining increased popularity all over the world as it is relatively less invasive, and proven way of reducing weight when compared to other procedures which promise to reduce weight in 7 days, in 30 days, overnight and what not. Laparoscopic obesity surgery can be considered a reliable way of getting rid of the extra and unnecessary fat which might become the basic cause of many diseases.
I came to know about many secrets about this procedure during PowerPoint presentation. A laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding is a restrictive bariatric surgery and designed for obese patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or greater—or between 35–40 in cases of patients with certain co-morbidities that are known to improve with weight loss, such as sleep apnea, diabetes, osteoarthritis, or metabolic syndrome. The gastric band is an inflatable silicone prosthetic device that is placed around the top portion of the stomach, via laparoscopic surgery.
The next day it was our operation theatre exposure session on laparoscopic obesity surgery (Gastric Banding). For some reason I was more interested in this topic than anything else, may be because of my own overweight. The actual procedure involved in this surgery is very simple and it is obvious that there is no long term morbidity involved after this surgery. The procedure involves creating a small pouch in the upper part of the stomach referred as new stomach by use of gastric band. This procedure actually does not involve cutting off any stomach parts or fat or any stapling tasks. As in any other laparoscopic surgery, small incision is made and five ports were used in this surgery. Swedish gastric band was used by other professor. Band was introduced in the abdomen and a gastric band is applied in the stomach at the level of gastro-esophageal junction by the help of gold finger forcep. A nice retro-gastric tunnel was formed and band was pulled from behind the stomach. This small dumbbell creation forms a pouch in the stomach would restrict the patient from eating more thus reducing weight. The hormone ghrelin secretion is reduced. Ghrelin is a hormone produced mainly by P/D1 cells lining the fundus of the human stomach and epsilon cells of the pancreas that stimulates appetite. Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease after meals. It is considered the counterpart of the hormone leptin, produced by adipose tissue, which induces satiation when present at higher levels. Ghrelin is also produced in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus where it stimulates the secretion of growth hormone from the anterior pituitary gland. In gastric banding procedures, the level of ghrelin is reduced in patients, thus causing satiation before it would normally occur. As consuming less food is a sure way to reduce your weight, this post surgery eating system helps in reducing weight quickly and safely unlike many other open surgical procedures. One more advantage is that the recovery time is also not more than 48 hours.  
I am sure that after I become a certified laparoscopic surgeon, I would not have any problem in convincing my patients for a laparoscopic surgery for weight loss as the risks involved are very less and the patients can be back to their work just within few days of surgery. Researches also prove that number of cases that have post surgical complications after a laparoscopic surgery are very less when compared to other open surgeries.
Laparoscopy has more than one type of procedure to treat obesity. Other obesity surgeries are gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, etc. My curiousness is still high to know more about these surgeries as the operation theatre exposure sessions of other types of obesity reducing surgeries are yet to be conducted this week. I am feeling really excited being a student of Laparoscopy Hospital and I am glad that I chose this institution for my Laparoscopic training.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.