Study: Obesity Surgery Risky

Chances Of Dying After Surgery Higher Than Previously Thought

(AP)  A new study shows that the chances of dying within a year after obesity surgery are higher than previously thought, even among people in their 30s and 40s.

The chances of dying within a year after obesity surgery are much higher than previously thought, even among people in their 30s and 40s, a study of more than 16,000 Medicare patients found.

Some previous studies of people in their 30s to their 50s — the most common ages for obesity surgery — found death rates well under 1 percent. But among 35- to 44-year-olds in the Medicare study, more than 5 percent of men and nearly 3 percent of women were dead within a year, and slightly higher rates were seen in patients 45 to 54.

Among patients 65 to 74, nearly 13 percent of men and about 6 percent of women died. In patients 75 and older, half of the men and 40 percent of the women died.

"The risk of death is much higher than has been reported," said University of Washington surgeon Dr. David Flum, the Medicare study's lead author. "It's a reality check for those patients who are considering these operations."

The study involved 16,155 Medicare patients who underwent obesity surgery between 1997 and 2002. It was published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study lumped together all deaths, with no breakdown on the causes. But obesity surgery's life-threatening complications can include malnutrition, infection and bowel and gallbladder problems. Also, surgery in general can be a deadly shock to the system, especially in older patients.

Dr. Neil Hutcher, president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, said that Medicare patients are probably sicker than the general U.S. population and that complication rates have declined as surgeons' expertise has increased.

But Flum said some previous research on the safety of obesity surgery consisted of "reports from the best surgeons reporting their best results," while the new study is more of a real-world look.

The American Society for Bariatric Surgery predicts obesity surgery will be performed more than 150,000 times this year in the United States. That is more than 10 times the number in 1998, according to a second JAMA study. The increase parallels a surge in the share of American adults who are at least 100 pounds overweight, from about 1 in 200 in 1986 to 1 in 50 in 2000, that study said.