Surgical Procedures & Innovations Obesity Surgery Revisions

Reasons for Revision Procedures

Scar tissue developed during the healing process from a first surgery can make a second surgery and subsequent healing more difficult. Surgeons at the Center for Weight Loss Surgery have created procedures that lower this risk.

Depending upon your specific needs, your surgeon will choose which procedure is best for you.

The most common reason for patients seeking revisional surgery is to convert an older weight loss procedure to a more modern and effective procedure such as the Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass or duodenal switch (also known as Bilio-Pancreatic Diversion with Duodenal Switch or DS).

Failure of Stomach Stapling

In the case of "stomach stapling" (also known as vertical banded gastroplasty orVBG), the procedure has been found to have failed in over 50 percent of patients, resulting in inadequate weight loss. Because of staple erosion, more recent stomach stapling operations have caused chronic inflammation, infection, and ulcers. This is one of the main reasons our surgeons use absorbable sutures rather than staples to perform intestinal attachments to the stomach.

Failure of Gastric Bypass

A patient's original gastric bypass may become ineffective when the small pouch and opening to the intestine doctors created stretches to allow more food into the intestine, leading to weight gain. This stretching of the tissue may be due either to a patient's overeating or from the healed tissue naturally stretching.