[Development, state of the art and future perspectives of surgery for morbid obesity]

Obesity is the most common form of malnutrition and morbid obesity is increasingly recognized as a major health concern. Drug treatments of the morbid obese have entirely failed in the long run. These circumstances have constituted incentives for surgeons to develop techniques resulting in malabsorptive or restrictive effects on food intake. Several techniques achieve weight loss through both these mechanisms and most likely also by changing the gastrointestinal signalling system. Within the last 50 years surgery for morbid obesity has been developed stepwise, like other surgical methods. More than 50 surgical anti-obesity techniques have been described. Half a dozen techniques have been left over and are performed mainly laparoscopically now a days. The outcome of these techniques over the last 30 years is reported in this article. It is the aim to illustrate that bariatric surgery is safe and so far more long-term efficient than any other technique available for the treatment of morbid obesity.