What Risks Are There With Gastric Lap Band Surgery?

Obesity surgery has advanced considerably in the past few years and modern forms of surgery such as gastric lap banding are unquestionably a lot safer and carry many fewer complications than early forms of open gastric bypass surgery. Nevertheless, there are still risks and they need to be discussed with your surgeon before having surgery.

Gastric lap banding carries several risks that are specific to this type of surgery but also carries the same risks that come will any type of major surgery. Additionally, there are some general risks that are common to any surgery which involves patients who are severely overweight.

The most serious risk is of course that of death occurring either during surgery or shortly after and directly related to surgery. At this early stage (gastric lap banding has been done for about 13 years now but has only been licensed in the US since 2001) there have been very few deaths seen and it is not easy to give a figure, though it is generally held that the risk of death from gastric lap banding is under one percent.

It is however interesting to see that that in one Australian study no deaths at all were reported in a group of some 2,700 patients who have undergone laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery since 1994. It should be noted however that Australia has been in the forefront of establishing the use of the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band and that more than ninety percent of all weight loss surgeries undertaken in Australia now use this method. This is significant as, in interpreting data from this particular study, you have to bear in mind that the experience of the surgeon is an important factor in terms of both risk and complication. Surgeons with a lot of experience of this technique exhibit a far higher rate of success.

Many of the risks encountered during the course of surgery are general rather than lap band specific and are common risks to do with such things as your age, weight, reaction to anesthetic and the existence of disease (whether such disease is or is not directly associated with your weight problem). The chief lap band specific risk during the course of surgery is that of gastric perforation (a tear occurring in the wall of the stomach) which occurs in about 1% of all cases.

The vast majority of complications occur following lap band surgery and the majority of patients will run into some form of complication in the weeks and months following surgery. Such complications will not necessarily be serious and will range from very mild to quite severe.

Around half of patients will suffer varying degrees of nausea and vomiting and approximately one-third of patients will also experience regurgitation (gastroesophageal reflux). About a quarter of patients will suffer band slippage and roughly one patient in seven will suffer a blockage to the passage joining the two parts of the stomach.

Other mild to severe difficulties after surgery can include the erosion of the band into the stomach and twisting or leakage of the access port. Problems with swallowing, constipation and diarrhea are also fairly common.

In a very small number of patients (less than 1%) a whole series of non-serious complications can arise including inflammation of the stomach, migration of the stomach above the diaphragm, inflammation of the pancreas, dehydration, abdominal pain, flatulence, chest pain and infection.

Generally speaking lap band surgery, especially when performed laparoscopically, has fewer risks than other forms of weight loss surgery, but the risks are still substantial and need to be discussed in detail with your surgeon and understood before you take any decision to have surgery.
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