[Weight regain after bariatric surgery: incidence at a tertiary-care center]

Obesity is a global epidemic whose treatment includes alternatives such as bariatric surgery, in which weight regain is considered a common postoperative complication.

To compare the incidence of weight regain at 2 years between sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass.

Descriptive report of a retrospective cohort study including patients undergoing sleeve gastrectomy or gastric bypass, with postoperative body weight recorded and 2-year follow-up in the outpatient clinic at a tertiary care hospital in Mexico. Pre- and postoperative weight, body mass index (BMI), ideal weight, preoperative excess weight, percentage of excess weight lost, weight regain, and total weight loss were analyzed.

83 patients were included: 61 (73.4%) women and 22 (26.5%) men with a mean age of 43.3 years, pre-surgical weight of 127.12 ± 28.7 kg and BMI of 47.2 ± 9.14 kg/m². Of these, 15.6% received gastric sleeve and 84.3% gastric bypass. The overall incidence of weight regain was lower after bypass according to the second Voorwinde definition (p = 0.02), and higher in women (62.3%) compared to men (31.8%) in both procedures (p = 0.014).

Gastric bypass had a lower incidence of weight regain compared to gastric sleeve, and it was more common in women. No significant differences in the remission of comorbidities were identified between the 2 techniques.