Laparoscopic surgery for obesity and diabetes aims to ensure better results in weight loss, health and quality of life of morbidly obese, severely obese and obese with diabetes or other pathologies. It is understood as results in the improvement of the quality of life the increase and the greater satisfaction in the physical, labor, psychic, social and sexual activity, where the personal and aesthetic self-esteem is fully implied.
What is laparoscopic surgery for obesity and diabetes in 3D?
The purpose of this type of surgery is to practice the anti-obesity technique that best suits each patient, without having to open the abdomen and working through small orifices of 5mm or 12mm. Through these orifices a camera and the necessary instruments for dissection, cutting and suturing are introduced. For this, it is necessary to have specialized equipment and the appropriate technological materials for the surgery. In addition, 3D technology allows greater precision and safety at the time of surgery, and ultrasonic or bipolar technology devices are capable of cutting and coagulating the blood vessels at the same time. The cuts between the intestine and the stomach are made with mechanical suture machines.
Advantages of 3D Laparoscopic Surgery
Thanks to 3D technology, the surgeon can see on the monitors as the human eye sees, i.e. in three dimensions. In this way, the sense of depth is not lost, which makes all our surgical gestures easier and safer. This has a direct impact on the safety of surgery and time, improving them considerably.
Which techniques can guarantee long-term slimming?
The surgeries that offer the best results are the gastric sleeve and those of the normal or metabolic bypass and the minigastric bypass, in case of diabetes. In some cases, the placement of a gastric band can solve the problem when the BMI is not very high and the patient does not suffer from type 2 diabetes.
- Gastric sleeve: what it does is to tubulize the stomach leaving it in the form of a narrow tube without acting on the intestine. With this, eating food in small quantities causes a sensation of having eaten enough, which makes weight loss physiological. In addition, the loss of a part of the stomach, known as the gastric fundus, prevents the secretion of a large amount of a hormone, ghrelin, which causes appetite and worsens the action of insulin in type 2 diabetics, thus improving this situation. This technique is the most commonly used to treat obesity, since, among other characteristics, the surgical complexity is lower.
- Minigastric Bypass: This technique causes weight loss while improving the problems of type 2 diabetes. However, this technique must be followed up in the long term as it may cause problems in the absorption of nutrients, vitamins and minerals such as iron and calcium and may require administration. The advantages of this technique are that it can cure or significantly improve type 2 diabetes, the loss of overweight between 65% -75% at 5 years in more than 75% of patients. It has been demonstrated that the minigastric bypass has better results than the gastric bypass without having so many side effects.
- Gastric banding: It consists in the placement of a silicone band that partially closes the entrance of food in the stomach. This reduces intake and guarantees weight loss. In addition, there is the possibility of closing the band more or less depending on the patient’s tolerance so that vomiting is avoided and intake is reduced. The placement of the band is simple and the recovery is fast.
Postoperative period after laparoscopic surgery for obesity and diabetes in 3D
After surgery the patient may feel discomfort generally bearable and sensitive to usual analgesics. It is highly advisable to walk during recovery. The return to normal activities is usually in a few weeks. As for the return to work, the patient can return to work about fifteen days after surgery. However, this depends on the type of work performed. The return to normality is shorter after laparoscopic surgery compared to traditional surgery.
Risks of laparoscopic obesity and diabetes surgery
As in any intervention, there are risks, although in general terms, most of the patients operated through this technique experience few or no complications, and can return to their daily activities quickly. Before exposing yourself to any type of surgery it is important to be informed of these risks, although in any case, the risks of morbid obesity surgery by laparoscopy are less than the risks of leaving a condition untreated. Complications of this intervention may include: bleeding, wound infection, urinary tract infection, pneumonia, blood clots, embolism or cardiorespiratory problems. The most specific, but infrequent, complication of this surgery is the leakage of contents into the abdomen through the new junctions (anastomoses) created between the stomach and intestine or the closure of the stomach.