Management of Post-Bariatric Surgery Emergencies

Abstract

Management of post-bariatric surgery emergencies is common practice in the USA and the world. Due to the popularity and widespread use of bariatric procedures to treat obesity and its comorbidities, emergency physicians and general surgeons will be challenged with the treatment of short- and long-term complications of bariatric procedures. In this article, we evaluate the most common long-term complications of the most commonly performed bariatric interventions.

Management of Complications After Bariatric Surgery: a Survey of Comfort and Educational Needs of General Surgeons in Ontario, Canada

“…Depending on the procedure, complication rates range from 10 to 17%, and reoperation rates can be as high as 7% [4]. As the number of patients who had bariatric surgery continues to grow, so will the number of patients who experience postoperative complications, which require surgical management [8][9][10][11][12]. Though a subset of these patients may be treated non-emergently by bariatric surgeons, with regionalization of bariatric surgery in Ontario to the Bariatric Centres of Excellence (BCoE), patients with urgent and emergent postoperative complications often present to their local hospital and acute care general surgeons instead of returning to the BCoE [9].…”

“…Early detection and appropriate surgical management of complications after bariatric surgery are crucial to prevent long-term patient morbidity and mortality [10,[13][14][15]. As such, general surgeons, who take acute care surgery call, should be comfortable with diagnosing, triaging, and managing patients who present with complications after bariatric surgery [1].…”