Introduction: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a prevalent counterpart of morbid obesity. With the surgical technique of sleeve gastrectomy (SG) gaining widespread acceptance for weight loss in morbid obese patients, we aimed to undertake a study to compare its effectiveness to gastric bypass (GB) for metabolic control in these patients.
Methods: A total of 425 patients from a prospectively collected database of morbid obese subjects between 18 and 65 years of age undergoing a primary bariatric procedure from March 2013 to September 2015 were included. Statistical analysis was performed using general estimation equation and propensity scores, and odds ratios were calculated.
Results: Three hundred nineteen patients underwent SG and 106 underwent GB. Mean age of the patients was 37.8 ± 11.7, and mean body mass index (BMI) was 44.3 ± 5.9 kg/m2. MetS was present in 61.4% of patients and diabetes mellitus in 48.6%. MetS prevalence decreased from 60 and 64% in the SG and GB groups to 16 and 10% at 12 months, respectively. These improvements were consistent throughout the study period in both groups, with no significant difference between the two groups (for all variables: P trend < .001, P interaction > .05). After propensity score-adjusted analysis, neither surgical technique showed superiority over the other regarding metabolic improvement (OR for MetS resolution: 0.81, 95% CI: 0.49-1.34).
Conclusions: In this short-term study with 1-year follow-up, SG showed similar results to GB in terms of weight loss, MetS resolution, and glycemic control in a large Middle Eastern cohort. Long-term studies are needed to further investigate the effectiveness of SG in this regard.
Keywords: Bariatric surgery; Gastric bypass; Metabolic syndrome; Morbid obesity; Sleeve gastrectomy.