Post-bariatric body contouring surgery: analysis of complications in 180 consecutive patients

bariatric surgery is the main treatment for cases of severe obesity and body contour surgery to correct body dysmorphia resulting from weight loss. However, these procedures are associated with a significant number of postoperative complications.

this study aims to analyze complications in post-bariatric patients undergoing body contour surgeries and correlating them with the age and BMI of these patients.

the current study is a retrospective study evaluating 180 consecutive patients undergoing body contour surgery after bariatric surgery within a period of three years (2014-2016). Data such as age, gender, Body Mass Index before bariatric and plastic surgeries, type of surgery performed and complications were collected, and correlated the age as well as the BMI of the patients in the pre-bariatric (PB) and pre-plastic (PP) periods with the complications presented.

of the 180 patients evaluated, 91.7% were females (n = 165), and the mean age was 46.3 ± 1.7 years. The most performed surgery was abdominoplasty (48.9%), followed by mammaplasty (21.1%). Some complications occurred in 26.1% of the patients with partial dehiscence (40.4%) and seroma (14.9%) being the most frequent. Patients who presented complications had a higher mean age (50.8 years) than those who presented with no complications, and major complications accounted for 2.7% of the sample.

a statistically significant number of surgeries progressed without complications and, when they occurred, there were minor complications in most of the sample. Complications were more frequent in older patients with some of them having a BMI over 30 Kg/m2.