[Obesity, anesthesia and bariatric surgery]

Obesity is increasingly prevalent, particularly in developed countries, and has come to represent a serious threat to public health, with consequent repercussions on health care expenditure. Bariatric surgery is a great advance in the treatment of obese patients. Applied when all other measures have failed, this therapeutic option is achieving very favorable outcomes and is therefore being carried out with increasing frequency. Obese patients are at a disadvantage during anesthesia, given that techniques are more difficult to perform and risk increases. It therefore becomes particularly important to understand the pathophysiological changes that obesity brings about as well as the implications for anesthesia in the context of bariatric surgery so that outcomes can be as favorable as possible.