Diagnoses related to abuse of alcohol and addictive substances after gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy: a nation-wide registry study from Norway

Abstract

Background: After Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) patients are at higher risk of alcohol problems. In recent years, sleeve gastrectomy (SG) has become a common procedure, but the incidence rates (IRs) of alcohol abuse after SG are unexplored.

Objectives: To compare IRs of diagnoses indicating problems with alcohol or other substances between patients having undergone SG or RYGB with a minimum of 6-month follow-up.

Setting: All government funded hospitals in Norway providing bariatric surgery.

Methods: A retrospective population-based cohort study based on data from the Norwegian Patient Registry. The outcomes were ICD-10 of Diseases and Related Health Problems diagnoses relating to alcohol (F10) and other substances (F11-F19).

Results: The registry provided data on 10,208 patients who underwent either RYGB or SG during the years 2008 to 2014 with a total postoperative observation time of 33,352 person-years. This corresponds to 8196 patients with RYGB (27,846 person-yr, average 3.4 yr) and 2012 patients with SG (5506 person-yr; average 2.7 yr). The IR for the diagnoses related to alcohol problems after RYGB was 6.36 (95% confidence interval: 5.45-7.36) per 1000 person-years and 4.54 (2.94-6.70) after SG. When controlling for age and sex, adjusted hazard ratio was .75 (.49-1.14) for SG compared with RYGB. When combining both bariatric procedures, women <26 years were more likely to have alcohol-related diagnoses (3.2%, 2.1-4.4) than women of 26 to 40 years (1.6%, 1.1-2.1) or women >40 (1.3%, .9-1.7). The IR after RYGB for the diagnoses related to problems with substances other than alcohol was 3.48 (95% confidence interval: 2.82-4.25) compared with 3.27 (1.94-5.17) per 1000 person-years after SG. Controlling for age and sex, the hazard ratio was .99 (.60-1.64) for SG compared with RYGB.

Conclusions: In our study, procedure-specific differences were not found in the risks (RYGB versus SG) for postoperative diagnoses related to problems with alcohol and other substances within the available observation time. A longer observation period seems required to explore these findings further.

Keywords: Addiction; Alcohol; Bariatric surgery; Gastric bypass; Sleeve gastrectomy.