Impact of cardiovascular risk factors on chronic abdominal pain after laparoscopic gastric bypass

Patients with chronic pain after laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) surgery frequently report intense postprandial abdominal pain. Reduced blood supply due to atherosclerosis was hypothesised to be a contributing cause.

This was a retrospective, single-centre cohort study including all patients with LRYGB surgery from 2010 through 2015. Data from multiple registries, medical records and a questionnaire were used. The risk of chronic abdominal pain was analysed using multivariate logistic regression.

We included 787 patients. Among these, 177 (23%) patients were defined as having chronic abdominal pain. The median follow-up was 63 months. When investigating the impact of risk factors for atherosclerosis including dyslipidaemia, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, smoking and cardiovascular co-morbidities, the "atherosclerosis composite score" was a significant risk factor (odds ratio = 1.22, 95% confidence interval: 1.02-1.45). In a multivariate model specifically investigating dyslipidaemia, the association with chronic abdominal pain was non-significant.

In this exploratory study, development of chronic abdominal pain was significantly associated with risk factors for atherosclerosis, but the specific association with dyslipidaemia was non-significant.

The study was supported by the Danish Medical Association's Research Foundation and the Edgar Schnohr Foundation.

The study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency (No. REG-063-2017).