Assessment of the body composition and the loss of fat-free mass through bioelectric impedance analysis in patients who underwent open gastric bypass.

BACKGROUND: Bariatric surgery is considered an effective option for the management of morbid obesity. The incidence of obesity has been gradually increasing all over the world reaching epidemic proportions in some regions of the world. Obesity can cause a reduction of up to 22% in the life expectancy of morbidly obese patients. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to assess the weight loss associated with the first 6 months after bariatric surgery using bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) for the evaluation of fat mass and fat-free mass. METHOD: A total of 36 morbidly obese patients were subjected to open gastric bypass surgery. The patients weight was monitored before and after the procedure using the bioelectric impedance analysis. RESULTS: Bariatric surgery resulted in an average percentage of weight loss of 28.6% (40 kg) as determined 6 months after the procedure was performed. Analysis of the different components of body weight indicated an undesirable loss of fat-free mass along with the reduction of total body weight. CONCLUSION: Open gastric bypass induced a significant loss of total weight and loss of fat-free mass in patients six months after the surgery. The use of bioelectric impedance analysis resulted in an appropriate estimation of the total weight components in individuals subjected to bariatric surgery allowing a more real analysis of the variation of weight after the surgery.

Minimally invasive surgery for gastric cancer in Brazil: current status and perspectives-a report from the Brazilian Laparoscopic Oncologic Gastrectomy Group (BLOGG).

The minimally invasive surgery for gastric cancer in Brazil has begun about two years after the first laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) performed by Kitano in Japan, in 1991. Although the report of first surgeries shows the year of 1993, there was no dissemination of the technique until the years 2010. At that time with the improvement of optical devices, laparoscopic instruments and with the publications coming from Asia, several Brazilian surgeons felt encouraged to go to Korea and Japan to learn the standardization of the LG. After that there was a significant increase in that type of surgery, especially after the IRCAD opened a branch in Brazil. The growing interest for the subject led some services to begin their own experience with the LG and, since the beginning, the results were similar with those found in the open surgery. Nevertheless, there were some differences with the papers published initially in Japan and Korea. In those countries, the surgeries were laparoscopic assisted, meaning that, in the majority of cases, the anastomoses were done through a mini-incision in the end of the procedure. In Brazil since the beginning it was performed completely through laparoscopic approach due to the skills acquired by Brazilian surgeons in bariatric surgeries. Another difference was the stage. While in the east the majority of cases were done in T1 patients, in Brazil, probably due to the lack of early cases, the surgeries were done also in advanced cases. The initial experience of Zilberstein et al. revealed low rates of morbidity without mortality. Comparing laparoscopic and open surgery, the group from Barretos/IRCAD showed shorter surgical time (216×255 minutes), earlier oral or enteral feeding and earlier hospital discharge, with a smaller number of harvested lymph nodes (28 in laparoscopic against 33 in open surgery). There was no significant difference regarding morbidity, mortality and reoperation rate. In the first efforts to publish a multicentric study the Brazilian Gastric Cancer Association (BGCA) collected data from three institutions analyzing 148 patients operated from 2006 to 2016. There were 98 subtotal, 48 total and 2 proximal gastrectomies. The anastomoses were totally laparoscopic in 105, laparoscopic assisted in 21, cervical in 2, and 20 open (after conversion). The reconstruction methods were: 142 Roux-en-Y, two Billroth I, and three other types. The conversion rate was 13.5% (20/148). The D2 dissection was performed in 139 patients. The mean number of harvested lymph nodes was 34.4. If we take only the D2 cases the mean number was 39.5. The morbidity rate was 22.3%. The mortality was 2.7%. The stages were: IA-59, IB-14, IIA-11, IIB-15, IIIA-9, IIIB-19, IIIC-11 and stage IV-three cases. Four patients died from the disease and 10 are alive with disease. The participating services have already begun the robotic gastrectomy with satisfactory results. The intention of this group is to begin now a prospective multicentric study to confirm the data already obtained with the retrospective studies.