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Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy was initially proposed as a first-stage procedure to perform in higher-risk patients in order to achieve significant weight loss prior to more complex bariatric procedures in a second stage.
Many surgeons reported an acceptable complication rate and significant weight loss following Sleeve Gastrectomy in higher-risk patients. Soon it was noted that patients frequently lost so much weight that they did not require a second stage. These positive results encouraged surgeons to perform Sleeve Gastrectomy more frequently. Some surgeons started to perform it as a sole bariatric operation, going on to a second stage only in selected patients whose weight loss was inadequate. Moreover, it was proposed as a technique for patients whose obesity was not severe enough to require a complex bariatric operation. Eventually, Sleeve Gastrectomy came to be performed in patients with special conditions for whom the usual bariatric operations might be too aggressive.
The preliminary data shared in the 2007 Congress of the Spanish Society of Obesity Surgery and Metabolic Diseases (SECO) suggested that the number of Sleeve Gastrectomies performed in Spain had grown exponentially in recent years; the creation of a Spanish Multicenter National Registry was proposed in order to evaluate results following Sleeve Gastrectomy in Spain, attending not only to morbidity and mortality but to know also mid- and long-term weight loss results.
Raquel Sánchez, Head of the General Surgery Department at the Pontevedra Hospital Complex (Galicia, Spain) will present the results of this study and its follow-up 5 years from the procedure.