Feasibility and early onset outcomes of outpatient sleeve gastrectomy

In the United States, the rate of obesity has nearly tripled over the past 60 years to 41.9% of the national population. Consequently, the need for bariatric surgeries for weight loss management has significantly increased, while access to bariatric surgery has decreased.

Our Bariatrics Center has performed over 2000 bariatric procedures during the past decade in an outpatient setting, hence, the study aim was to present our data and prove the feasibility of performing sleeve gastrectomy in an outpatient setting. We examined and reported on outcomes and specifically looked at early complication rates.

Between September 2015 and July 2023, data from bariatric surgical patients (aged 16-70 years) were collected at a private practice bariatric center.

The criteria for eligibility included a low body-mass index (BMI) (under 55 kg/m² for males and under 60 kg/m² for females), no previous major abdominal surgery, stable and actively treated comorbidities. Pre-operative evaluation included medical clearance on every patient, and a pre-operative weight loss program. Descriptive statistics, not statistical significance, was calculated using R project software from 2144 patients for BMI values and frequency tables of early onset complication rates among the procedures performed that occurred 48 and 72 h post-operatively.

In total, 92% of the patients across all procedures, majority being sleeve gastrectomy, showed no recorded complications. Of the 12 outpatient procedures, the sleeve gastrectomy recorded the highest number of early onset complications, with admission being the most frequent. The overall total complications, including hospitalizations, were 25 cases out of 2144 surgeries (1.17%).

In conclusion, our data demonstrates that sleeve gastrectomy bariatric surgery can be performed safely in an outpatient setting, as the number of early onset complications was comparable and sometimes lower than sleeves performed in the inpatient setting.