Cincinnati Children's to Offer New Surgical Procedure For Severely Overweight Patients
CINCINNATI -- Severely overweight individuals between 18 and 21 who have never been able to keep pounds off now have another minimally invasive surgery option to lose weight.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is offering the BioEnterics LAP-BAND System. The system, manufactured by INAMED Health of Santa Barbara, California, creates an earlier feeling of fullness and limits food consumption.
The LAP-BAND System, which is adjustable and reversible, is placed laparoscopically without cutting or stapling of the stomach or rerouting the intestine to bypass normal digestion. To date, more than 95,000 patients worldwide have undergone the LAP-BAND System procedure. The Food and Drug Administration approved the LAP-BAND System in June 2001.
"INAMED Health and Cincinnati Children's share a mission to deliver new minimally invasive surgical solutions to a broad patient base," says Jim McCollum, general manager of INAMED Health. "With this approach, we believe patients will experience reduced pain, trauma and recovery periods, as well as sustained, healthy weight loss."
"The LAP-BAND System can be adjusted to meet a patient's unique weight loss needs," says Victor Garcia, MD, surgical director of the Comprehensive Weight Management Center at Cincinnati Children's. "Being adjustable gives patients the opportunity to have a more gradual rate of weight loss and have the band adjusted at times of pregnancy or illness when some weight gain would be beneficial."
Through small incisions, similar to the ones bariatric surgeons at Cincinnati Children's currently use to perform the gastric bypass operation for weight loss, thin, long-shafted instruments are used to place the band around the upper part of the stomach. The band squeezes the stomach like a rubber band to create a small pouch. The narrow opening between the upper and lower parts of the stomach permits only a small amount of food to pass through at a time, giving the patient a feeling of being full sooner and longer.
Because the opening that the LAP-BAND System creates may need to be increased or decreased as the patient's needs change, the size of the opening can be modified without additional surgery. During the initial surgery, the band is attached by tubing to an access port that is placed below the skin. Through the port and the tubing, the size of the opening can be adjusted by a medical professional using saline solution.
Obesity contributes to numerous health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart conditions, and type 2 diabetes. Studies have shown that many of these conditions improve as patients with the LAP-BAND System lose their excess weight.
Although the Lap Band is not approved for adolescents under 18, bariatric surgeons at Cincinnati Children's are hopeful that it will become an option in the near future.
According to the Surgeon General's "call to action," obesity has reached epidemic proportions. In 1999, an estimated 61 percent of U.S. adults were overweight, along with 13 percent of children and adolescents. Obesity among adults has doubled since 1980, while the number of overweight adolescents has tripled. Increases in obesity are associated with dramatic increases in conditions such as type 2 diabetes and asthma. In addition, a recent study reported that obesity causes more deleterious effects on health than either smoking or problem drinking. The increase in chronic health conditions caused by obesity is comparable to that seen in 20 years of aging.
In February 2002, a report released by the United States Food and Drug Administration Office of Device Evaluation named the LAP-BAND System as one of the Significant Device Breakthroughs. The Office of Device Evaluation highlighted the LAP-BAND System and several other new products as significant medical breakthroughs "as they are first of a kind, e.g., they use a new technology or provide a major diagnostic or therapeutic advancement, such as reducing hospital stays and replacing the need for surgical intervention."
Contact Information
Jim Feuer, 513-636-4656,
jim.feuer@cchmc.org
