Trends and safety of bariatric revisional surgery in Italy: multicenter, prospective, observational study

Background: revisional bariatric surgery (RBS) represents a further solution for patients who experience inadequate weight loss (IWL) following primary bariatric surgery (BS) or significant weight regain (WR) following initial satisfactory response. RBS guidelines are lacking; however, an increased trend in further BS offerings has been reported recently. Objective: analyze trend, mortality, complication, readmission, and reoperation rates for any reason at 30 days after RBS in Italy. Setting: ten Italian high-volume BS centers (university hospitals and private centers). Methods: prospective, observational, multicenter study enrolling patients undergoing RBS between October 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, registering reasons for RBS, technique, mortality, intraoperative and perioperative complications, readmissions, and reinterventions for any reason. Patients undergoing RBS during the same calendar interval in 2016-2020 were considered control patients. Results: a total of 220 patients were enrolled and compared with 560 control-group patients. Mortality was .45% versus .35% (n.s), with an overall mortality of .25%, while open surgery or conversion to open surgery was registered in 1%. No difference was found for mortality, morbidity, complications, readmission (1.3%), and reoperation rates (2.2%). IWL/WR was the most frequent cause, followed by gastroesophageal reflux disease; Roux-en-Y gastric bypass was the most used revisional procedure (56%). Sleeve gastrectomy was the most revised procedure in the study group, while gastric banding was the most revised in the control group. RBS represents up to 9% of the total BS in the Italian participating centers. Conclusions: laparoscopy represents the standard approach for RBS, which appears safe. Current Italian trends show a shift toward sleeve gastrectomy being the most revised procedure and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass being the most frequent revisional procedure.