Gastric Sleeve Surgery

What is the Gastric Sleeve Surgery?

Gastric Sleeve Surgery is technically called gastric sleeve resection, it is typically used to safely jump-start the surgical weight loss process in people who are too obese or sick to have more invasive weight loss surgeries or are not candidates for gastric banding procedures, such as Lap Band surgery or Realize Band Surgery.

Gastric sleeve surgery lets such people reach a safe weight so they can then undergo the more radical gastric bypass surgery or duodenal switch surgery. The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery states that this is the most useful application of gastric sleeve surgery at this time, because it appears to be faster and/or easier than other weight loss surgeries in these high-risk people.

Other names for gastric sleeve resection are sleeve gastrectomy, vertical sleeve gastrectromy, tube gastrectomy and laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy.

The “lap sleeve” also known as the “VSG” or laparoscopic vertical sleeve gastrectomy is a relatively new procedure. The procedure was originally intended for a two step procedure in patients that were so obese that conventional procedures such as the bypass and duodenal switch were too risky. The initial results for these type of patients were quite promising in the initial phase and led investigators to wonder what the results of this procedure would be in patients who were not as obese.

The procedure involves resecting or removing approximately 80% of the stomach. This is accomplished by using a surgical stapler and a sizing tube which leaves the stomach as the shape of a slender banana. The procedure works by primarily providing restriction. The advantage of this procedure is that the restriction is not as dramatic as seen in the lap band or the gastric bypass. In addition, some of the pioneers in this procedure believe that there are some metabolic advantages with the lap sleeve. These thoughts are based on significantly improved control of diabetes and hypertension without a proportionally significant amount of weight loss.