Laparoscopic Revision of an Enlarged Gastric Outlet After Gastric Bypass

Excess body weight has been shown to have many adverse health effects including, increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, joint problems and early death. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass has been shown in the literature to be an effective weight loss surgery in the majority of patients who are morbidly obese in both short and long term weight loss management. However, while 80% of patients who undergo gastric bypass lose 67-75% of their excess body weight within 2 years of surgery, 20% of patients fail to loose or regain a substantial portion of their excess body weight.1-2 There are several reasons postulated to be the cause in patients who regain their weight after gastric bypass surgery. These include poor nutritional choices and eating high caloric carbohydrates in a grazing eating pattern. Also dilation of the gastric pouch overtime which can decrease the feeling of satiety and allow for larger meals to be eaten can cause recidivism of obesity. Another problem that can occur is the enlargement of the gastrojejunostomy anastomosis. Patients who have an opening larger than 2 cm can have rapid emptying of food into the intestines and decreased satiety with meals. Plication is a standard surgical technique of folding or tucking in, which has been used widely on other parts of the human anatomy. There have been several methods tried in the past to place plication sutures in the gastrojejunostomy from an endoluminal approach.3-7 These devices have had some success but are not widely used at this time. We aim to demonstrate that laparoscopic suture plication of the enlarged gastrojejunostomy can provide a safe and effective minimally invasive method to promote increased weight loss in this subset of gastric bypass patients who have an enlarged gastric stoma. Specific Aim 1 To demonstrate that the laparoscopic plication of an enlarged gastric bypass is a safe surgical option to promote weight loss in the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass patient. Specific Aim 2 To monitor the effectiveness of long term weight loss after laparoscopic plication of the gastrojejunostomy in the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass patient