Gastric Sleeve Weight Loss Surgery, The Right Choice?

The gastric sleeve is gaining momentum in the weight loss surgery arena. The full name of the procedure is vertical sleeve gastrectomy but many people have shortened it to gastric sleeve or sleeve gastrectomy. They are all the same procedure. There is one other name that you might hear that is not the same procedure although the name is very close. It is called a vertical banded gastrectomy, it is a different surgery.

While the gastric sleeve has not been a stand alone procedure for weight loss as long as some other procedures, it has been around for a very long time. It was used in two ways. First, it was used as a treatment for people with stomach ulcers. Doctors noticed that the ulcer patients lost weight and kept it off. Second, as the first half of a weight loss surgery called duodenal switch. If a patient is too obese to do the complete duodenal switch which involves reducing the stomach size and rerouting the intestines, just the stomach reduction is done. After the patient loses weight they go back and do the second part. But doctors noticed that patients were losing enough weight with just the stomach reduction. After studies of both the ulcer patients and the duodenal switch patients it was decided to do the gastric sleeve as a stand alone procedure.

The stomach reduction done in a gastric sleeve is different from that done in a gastric bypass, or stomach stapling as some people call it. In gastric bypass a small pouch is surgically made from the top of the stomach. The intestines are then cut and pulled up to this small pouch, bypassing the rest of the stomach, the pyloric valve at the bottom of the stomach and the first part of the small intestines. The rest of the stomach is not removed. In a gastric sleeve the smaller stomach is made in the shape of a tube from the esophagus to the pyloric valve, nothing is bypassed. The excess stomach is removed.

Gastric sleeve patients report less problems with digestion since there is no rerouting of the intestines. The weight loss is comparable to other types of weight loss surgery. The part of the stomach that the tube is made from is less stretchy than the pouch in gastric bypass so it is less likely to stretch.  More and more surgeons are adding the gastric sleeve to their practice.