Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding: Where It stands in 2022

Obesity is becoming one of the most important health-related condition world-wide, and with the increasing incidence of it, also obese-related comorbidities are rising. For this reason, the importance of bariatric surgery has reached a turning point, in which it is fundamental to understand which kind of procedure is the best for our patients. In the last four decades new technique and implants have been introduced and put on the market, and new studies are ongoing to try to improve the ones we already have. Gastric band was one of the first surgery introduced for the treatment of morbid obesity and it was also the most successful one, being presented as easy, quick and reversible. In our study we tried to understand the effectiveness of the band in patients that decide to remove it after many years in place. Following their weight trend and the symptoms that they report, we tried to understand if there is still a place for gastric banding in 2022. We considered the minimum weight reach, the presence of comorbidities, the weight regain and the presence of symptoms linked to device’s complications. Regarding the minimum weight reached we noticed that the majority of patients not only didn’t fall in the normal weight category, but they where still classified as obese; subsequently most of them experienced weight gain in the long term, and the majority of obesity related comorbidities didn’t decreased at all. Studying weight change and modification through time, the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms, the obesity-related comorbidities’ evolution and the desire to go on with a bariatric path, we conclude that the down effect of the band are higher than the bright side.