Long-term follow-up of disease-specific quality of life after bariatric surgery.

BACKGROUND: Substantial improvements in health-related quality of life measured by generic questionnaires (most often the Short Form-36) have been noted over the long term in patients with morbid obesity who had undergone bariatric surgery. OBJECTIVES: To obtain long-term follow-up data on disease-specific quality of life in patients who underwent bariatric surgery (biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch) in 2007 to 2008. SETTING: Québec Heart and Lung Institute, Québec, Canada. METHODS: This study is a follow-up of the validation study, the Laval Questionnaire, an obesity-specific measure of health-related quality of life developed to be used in clinical trials. Patients who contributed to the validation study in 2007 to 2008 were administered the Laval Questionnaire again at long-term follow-up. RESULTS: Of 112 patients who contributed to the validation study, 90 were available for this long-term follow-up study (retention rate: 80%). Median follow-up was 8.8 years. For all 6 domains of the Laval Questionnaire, the improvements in quality-of-life scores were much larger than our best estimate of the minimal clinically important difference. In others, we observed some decline in quality-of-life scores over time after initial changes that occurred 1 to 2 years after surgery, during the so-called "honeymoon period." Improvements in quality of life were clearly related to surgery. CONCLUSION: This study confirms that bariatric surgery using biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch improves disease-specific quality of life in the short and long term. It also demonstrates that the Laval Questionnaire is responsive to treatment-induced changes.