Bariatric emergencies: current evidence and strategies of management

The demand for bariatric surgery is increasing and the postoperative complications are seen more frequently. The aim of this paper is to review the current outcomes of bariatric surgery emergencies and to formulate a pathway of safe management.

The PubMed and Google search for English literatures relevant to emergencies of bariatric surgery was made, 6358 articles were found and 90 papers were selected based on relevance, power of the study, recent papers and laparoscopic workload. The pooled data was collected from these articles that were addressing the complications and emergency treatment of bariatric patients. 830,998 patients were included in this review.

Bariatric emergencies were increasingly seen in the Accident and Emergency departments, the serious outcomes were reported following complex operations like gastric bypass but also after gastric band and the causes were technical errors, suboptimal evaluation, failure of effective communication with bariatric teams who performed the initial operation, patients factors, and delay in the presentation. The mortality ranged from 0.14%-2.2% and increased for revisional surgery to 6.5% (p = 0.002). Inspite of this, mortality following bariatric surgery is still less than that of control group of obese patients (p = value 0.01).

Most mortality and catastrophic outcomes following bariatric surgery are preventable. The awareness of bariatric emergencies and its effective management are the gold standards for best outcomes. An algorithm is suggested and needs further evaluation.