ABLATE WEIGHT (Ablation Plus ESG for Weight Loss)

Obesity is a chronic disease state driven by the imbalance of caloric intake and expenditure and mediated by multiple central and peripheral pathways that may serve as targets for therapeutic interventions. The endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) is a per oral gastric remodeling technique that employs full-thickness suturing to imbricate the stomach along the greater curvature to achieve a restricted, sleeve-like configuration. While the ESG recapitulates the configuration of a gastric sleeve, it has not yet been shown to achieve as robust weight loss outcomes compared to the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG). A major difference between ESG and LSG is that the former does not involve the gastric fundus. The proximal stomach, and the fundus in particular, produces ghrelin, the only known orexigenic hormone, which has been linked to increased calorie intake and weight gain. Studies have observed reduced levels of ghrelin along multiple timepoints following LSG, and this has been attributed to targeting of the fundus, as bariatric surgeries that did not involve the fundus did not see a decrease in circulating plasma ghrelin. In contrast, in a small comparative study of ESG and LSG, patients who had undergone ESG did not show any decrease in fasting ghrelin levels, 8 ostensibly due to fundic-sparing. In this study, the investigators propose to investigate the effects of fundic ablation (FA) on circulating plasma ghrelin, satiation via standard nutrient drink test, and total body weight loss (TBWL), as well as the incidence of adverse events. Fundic ablation will be followed sequentially with ESG, to evaluate the combined impact of FA and ESG (FA-ESG). This study hypothesizes that, compared to baseline, FA-ESG will diminish fasting ghrelin levels, improve satiation, and induce a TBWL ≥ 15% at 12 months.