Diabetes should get priority for obesity surgery?

Monday September 21st, 2015

Patients with type 2 diabetes should be given priority for bariatric surgery, according to a major study in Sweden.

The researchers say their 28-year-long project is the first study of its kind to assess the benefits of targeting the treatment at people with diabetes or pre-diabetes.

According to their research, this treatment then pays for itself by reducing the need for costly diabetes medication and treatment for complications later.

The research involved some 2,010 patients who underwent the treatment together with 2,037 others.

The first patients were recruited in 1987 and the last in 2001.

Reporting in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, the researchers say that in the years following treatment, bariatric surgery was a more expensive option for patients without diabetes or with pre-diabetes than for those who did not have the operation by sums of more than 20,000 US dollars. But, for patients with diabetes, the cost of the procedure was matched by reductions in other costs.

Researcher Dr Martin Neovius of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, said: “We show that for obese patients with type 2 diabetes, the upfront costs of bariatric surgery seem to be largely offset by prevention of future health-care and drug use.

"This finding of cost neutrality is seldom noted for health-care interventions, nor is it a requirement of funding in most settings."

Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology 17 September 2015 [abstract]

Tags: Diabetes | Europe | Gastroenterology

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