Cincinnati - The Jewish Hospital now offers an incision-free procedure known as "ROSE" (Restorative Obesity Surgery, Endoluminal) that reduces the size of a patient's stomach pouch and stoma to the original post-gastric bypass proportions to help them back onto the path of weight loss.
Gastric bypass patients work very hard to manage their weight and adjust their lifestyle after surgery. Sometimes, through no fault of their own or their surgical choice, the benefits of the bypass procedure are not permanent. Until recently, revision options have been expensive, difficult to perform and risky for the patient, effectively leaving them without any treatment options. Now, with this new incisionless procedure there is a new and dramatically less invasive way to correct a key cause of weight re-gain.
"Gastric bypass surgery offers a very effective means to lose weight. It is not, however, always a permanent fix. A small percentage of patients who undergo gastric bypass begin to regain weight - and the dangerous co-morbidities associated with it - a few years after their initial operation," says Elliott Fegelman, M.D., director of surgery at The Jewish Hospital.
Studies show that post-gastric bypass weight regain sometimes occurs because the stomach pouch and the opening to the small intestine (the stoma) slowly stretch out, allowing the patient to eat more without feeling full. Invasive procedures to restore the anatomy to the original post-surgery proportions have been too complicated and dangerous for most patients, leaving them without any feasible treatment options.
By eliminating skin incisions, this new procedure may provide important advantages to patients including reduced risk of infection and associated complications, less post-operative pain, faster recovery time and no abdominal scars. To perform the ROSE procedure a small, flexible endoscope and newly innovated surgical devices are used. The scope and the instruments are inserted through the mouth and into the stomach pouch. The tools are then used to grasp tissue and deploy tissue anchors to create multiple tissue folds around the stoma, reducing the size of the opening to more closely match original post-gastric bypass proportions. If needed, additional anchors are then placed in the stomach pouch to reduce its volume capacity. No incisions are made in the patient's skin during the procedure.
Ideal patients for the ROSE procedure are patients who were initially successful losing weight after their gastric bypass and now are regaining weight. After an initial screening, candidates undergo a series of evaluations including nutritional and dietary counseling, a full medical exam, and endoscopy to determine if they are good candidates.
More than 24 million people in the United States suffer from severe obesity and the numbers continue to rise. Several serious diseases and conditions are commonly associated with obesity, including Type II diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and cardiovascular disease. Surgical treatment of obesity has increased significantly in recent years. Over 200,000 individuals in the United States underwent bariatric surgery in 2007, and it is estimated that over 125,000 patients today are candidates waiting for an incisionless revision procedure.
The Jewish Hospital is an acute care hospital located in Cincinnati's northeast suburbs. It was established in 1850 as the first Jewish hospital in the United States. To view other Jewish Hospital news releases, go to www.JewishHospitalCincinnati.com.
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