Weight loss initiatives for the obese patient prior to surgery, controversy or practice? — YRD
  1. Schedule
  2. Session 4: Endoscopic Surgery for the Obese, a Challenge to be Addressed
  3. Weight loss initiatives for the obese patient prior to surgery, controversy or practice?

Weight loss initiatives for the obese patient prior to surgery, controversy or practice? (1434)

Tom Manley 1
  1. Gynaecology Endoscopy Unit, Monash Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The overall incidence of obesity is rising and it has been predicted that obesity is likely to overtake smoking as the country’s leading health problem.  Certainly comorbid conditions such as diabetes and heart disease are more common in the obese population, particularly when BMI is above 40.  The available evidence presents conflicting views about the impact of obesity on surgical morbidity with large retrospective studies finding the ‘obesity paradox’.  So is it even worthwhile encouraging our obese patients to attempt weight loss acutely preoperatively or should this be mandated for benign gynaecological surgery?

  1. Gynecologic Surgery in the Obese Woman. Committee Opinion No.619. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Obstet Gynecol January 2015
  2. Mullen JT, Moorman DW, Davenport DL. The obesity paradox: body mass index and outcomes in patients undergoing nonbariatric general surgery. Ann Surg 2009; 250:166–72
  3. Biswas N, Hogston P. Surgical risk from obesity in gynaecology. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist 2011;13:87–91.