Purpose: To determine the real influence of the gastric twist on the progression of esophagitis after SG, evaluating pre- and late post-operative endoscopic findings.
Material and methods: We retrospectively included 459 patients submitted to SG between 2009 and 2019. The sample comprised patients who performed esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) at the pre-operative and late post-operative periods.
Results: Patients were mainly female (85.6%), with a mean age of 40.4 years. Mean follow-up time was 20.8 months. In the pre-operative period, 1.1% of patients had non-erosive esophagitis, 24.2% of patients had grade A erosive esophagitis, and 1.5% of patients had grade B. In the post-operative evaluation, 3.3% had non-erosive esophagitis, 14.8% presented grade A erosive esophagitis, 8.9% had grade B, and 1.3% had grade C esophagitis. There were no cases of Barrett's esophagus. Forty-nine patients (10.7%) presented gastric twist. Comparing patients with and without gastric twist, it was possible to observe that the gastric twist group presented a higher incidence of grade C esophagitis (4.0% × 1.0%), p = 0.017. The correlation between the occurrence of gastric twist and esophagitis progression showed a prevalence ratio of 1.36 (95% CI 0.82-2.25).
Conclusions: SG is responsible for an increase in the prevalence of erosive esophagitis, and the occurrence of gastric twist definitely plays a role on it, expressing a risk of 36% for esophagitis progression and being related to a higher incidence of severe esophagitis.
Keywords: Bariatric surgery; Esophagitis; Gastric twist; Gastroesophageal reflux disease; Sleeve gastrectomy.