Novel/experimental bariatric techniques

Due to the documented effects regarding durable and pronounced weight loss as well as improvement/resolution of obesity-associated morbidity, the number of bariatric surgical procedures performed has increased in an 'epidemiologic' fashion during the last decade. Most common/established procedures used today have well-documented effects but are all associated with technique-specific advantages as well as shortcomings. In particular, complications in the short as well as long term constitute a drive for continuous development of new techniques. A common feature of such new techniques is to reduce the degree of surgical trauma by being less invasive. Some of the new techniques used for bariatric treatment have been in clinical practice for a long time. However, due to the lack of controlled data with documentation of their efficacy and risk of complications, these are still to be considered as experimental. Other techniques are newly being introduced, and therefore data on their potential use for treatment of morbidly obese patients are limited. In this article, an overview of some of the most important of such new techniques is given. Some recently presented methodologies in which very sparse documentation is present, but which have been appreciated for being innovative and sometimes controversial, are also mentioned.