Bariatric Surgery in Adolescents with Obesity: Long-Term Perspectives and Potential Alternatives

Severe obesity among adolescent shows a worrisome trend in regard to its increasing prevalence and poses a great challenge for treatment. Conservative measures have modest effects on weight loss, usually fail in achieving a sustainable weight loss and resolution of comorbidities. This has led to greater utilization of bariatric surgery (BS) that offers a fast reduction in body mass index with little perioperative complications. Despite the increasing utilization of BS, data are still insufficient, regarding their long-term outcome in adolescents. We review short- and long-term effects of BS and their implications on bone health and nutritional deficiencies in adolescents. In addition, we discuss possible pharmaceutical alternatives.

BS results in a substantial weight loss of roughly 37% in the first-year post-operation and is superior to conservative measures in resolution of metabolic comorbidities. BS significantly improves health-related quality of life. Longer follow-up (F/U) shows weight regain in 50% of patients. Furthermore, reduced bone mass and nutritional deficiencies were reported in up to 90% of patients. Most recently, alternative to BS became more relevant with approval of GLP-1 analogues use in adolescents. GLP-1 analogues are potent enough to induce moderate clinically meaningful weight loss and improvement of metabolic component.

We conclude that obese adolescents without major obesity-related complications may benefit from pharmacological interventions with lifestyle modification. We advise considering BS as treatment approach in adolescents with severe obesity and major obesity-related complications with proper preoperative preparation and postoperative F/U in excellence centers.