Introduction: Obesity is becoming one of the major public health problems. Bariatric procedures are considered the most effective methods of treating this condition but they are costly and entail a high risk of complications. Thus, there is a need to look for better bariatric treatment solutions. One of the newest, highly promising bariatric methods is endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG), which is comparably effective to other bariatric procedures in terms of weight loss but at the same time it is much less invasive.
Materials and methods: Eight obese patients underwent ESG. Under general anaesthesia, an endoscope was inserted into the stomach, where a row of 4-5 running stitches was placed (from the pyloric part towards the GE junction). Each of the stitches was cinched tight, which resulted in gastric lumen reduction comparable to that achieved with laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy.
Results: The procedures were performed without any severe peri-operative complications. The only adverse event was a minor haemorrhage in one of the patients, which did not require any surgical intervention. After the surgery, the patients reported a substantial weight loss. Mean %TBWL was 8.6%, 15.4% and 19.6% at 1, 2 and 3 months, respectively.
Conclusions: Minimally invasive and highly effective in body weight reduction, endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is a promising method of treating obesity. The procedure requires appropriate tools and equipment. The method guarantees gastric volume reduction comparable to that achieved with sleeve resection. The initial results confirm that the effectiveness of the surgery in terms of body weight loss is similar to that seen in other forms of bariatric treatment.
Discussion: Compared to laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is substantially less invasive. Also, it requires shorter procedure time and shorter hospital stay. Data from other medical centres demonstrate somewhat lower dynamics of total body weight loss but these results need to be verified in a long-term follow-up.
Keywords: ESG; bariatric surgery; endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty; minimally invasive surgical procedures; obesity.