Study says obesity surgery for adolescents safe

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Adolescents are less likely to suffer complications from obesity surgery than adults, a reassuring finding because little had been known about the risk facing the small but growing number of teens who opt for it, researchers said on Thursday.

They compared post-surgical complications in 55,192 obese patients age 18 and older who had various types of bariatric surgery for weight loss with those in 309 obese patients ages 12 to 18 who underwent the procedures.

About 5.5 percent of the adolescents had complications within 30 days of surgery, none of them fatal. By comparison, nearly 10 percent of the adults experienced complications, 0.2 percent fatal, according to the study presented at a meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery in San Diego.

"There's always been the concern of doing big operations in kids precisely because of the potential complications," Dr. Esteban Varela of the University of Texas South-western Medical Centre in Dallas, the study's lead author, said in a telephone interview.

For very obese adolescents who have exhausted other treatment options, Varela said this type of surgery appears to be a safe and effective option to lose weight, and these younger patients tolerate the surgery better than adults.

Complications included wound infections, reopening of the surgical site, bleeding, pneumonia, heart issues and other problems, the study said.

SOARING RATES OF OBESITY

The number of obese young Americans has soared in recent decades, and bariatric surgery has emerged as an alternative to diet and behavioural treatment methods.