by Joy Cressler

Created on: August 04, 2008

Gastric bypass is radical surgery to lose weight, but the procedure is gaining in popularity across the country. In a gastric bypass procedure, the stomach is surgically reduced, and part of the small intestine is bypassed.
The American Society for Bariatric Surgery estimated that about 140,000 gastric bypass procedures were performed in the United States in 2005.

Frequently, patients who have bariatric surgery benefit from drastic improvements in their health, losing up to 80 percent of their excess body weight, according to Dr. David Kim, director of bariatric surgery at North Hills Hospital's Center of Excellence in the Metroplex of Dallas.
Kim performs laparoscopic gastric bypass and LapBand.
"We cure diabetes in 98 percent of cases and high blood pressure in 85 percent of cases," he said. "Surgery allows patients to walk again for miles every day when it was physically impossible for them before surgery."
But gastric bypass, like any surgical procedure, is not without risk. Most common complications include suture tears and leaks, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia and infection.
"It's essential that patients make commitments to lifestyle changes and become educated about the value of proper nutrition and exercise to get the maximum benefit from bariatric surgery," Kim said.
Candidates for bariatric surgery should have a Body Mass Index of 40 or greater. Patients with a BMI of 35-39 can have bariatric surgery if they suffer from a major medical problem such as diabetes, hypertension or sleep apnea.
Dr. Edward Livingston with UT Southwest Medical Center in Dallas has performed thousands of open gastric bypass procedures known as Roux-en-Y until he believes he's practically perfected the operation.
He enjoys a low complication rate, as low as 3 percent. Nationwide, that complication rate ranges from 10-20 percent, Livingston said.
"I've been doing it forever and I don't have much enthusiasm to change," Livingston said. "I'm pretty adamant about doing the same operation - you perfect one operation."
Livingston said before 1993 when he began performing gastric bypass exclusively, he noticed that other types of general surgeries didn't yield such dramatic responses that gastric bypass did in curing diseases.
"That's why I got into this - the benefits are quite astounding," he said. "Nothing else works to achieve sustained weight loss for a long time and improve the quality of life so profoundly."
But not everyone will choose the more invasive gastric bypass like the Roux-en-Y.

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