Bariatric Surgery for Treatment of Hypothalamic Obesity After Craniopharyngioma Therapy: a Matched Case-Control Study

Craniopharyngioma and its treatment lead to weight gain and pituitary hormone deficiencies. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of bariatric surgery for treatment of hypothalamic obesity after craniopharyngioma therapy. Five patients with hypothalamic obesity after craniopharyngioma treatment were included. Patients were treated with sleeve gastrectomy or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and individually matched to 2 control patients treated for common obesity. At 2 years of follow-up, total and excess weight loss in cases were 14.7% (p = 0.002) and 38.0% (p = 0.001), respectively; differences between both groups were 13.6% (p = 0.02) and 31.6% (p = 0.03). Minor postoperative alterations in hormone substitution in all 5 cases were observed. Thus, bariatric surgery induced significant weight loss in patients with craniopharyngioma-related hypothalamic obesity, even though a superior weight loss in controls was observed.