The shortness of breath caused by obesity can be reversed with weight loss surgery, British doctors have reported.
Computed tomography (CT) scanning, which combines several x-rays from different angles, was used by Dr Susan Copley and colleagues at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, UK, on 51 obese adults who had bariatric surgery.
Their findings are published in Radiology. The team found that bariatric surgery and weight loss appear to reverse some of the effects of obesity on the respiratory system. All participants lost weight post-surgery – an average of ten body mass index points.
CT scans at the time of the operation and six months later showed structural changes to the lung and trachea, reducing the rate of tracheal collapse and “air trapping”, in the lungs, was the strongest predictor of improvement in dyspnoea.
Dr Copley says that until now there have been few CT studies evaluating obesity’s effects on the lungs and the trachea. "This caused me to wonder if these differences were due to obesity and whether they were reversible after weight loss," she says.
"For the first time, this study has demonstrated changes in the CT morphology of large and small airways that improve when individuals lose weight," she says. "These features correlate with an improvement in patient symptoms."
The team believe that CT could act as a “useful morphological marker to demonstrate subtle changes which are not easily assessed by lung function alone".
Copley, S. et al. Lung Parenchymal and Tracheal CT Morphology: Evaluation Before and after Bariatric Surgery. Radiology 28 January 2020
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