Improvement of Ventricular Ejection Fraction after Bariatric Surgery in Obese Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy.
The impact of bariatric surgery among people with DCM has been studied in two patients with morbid obesity. Both male patients suffered from DCM with a VEF less than 27%, and other co-morbidities. Their Body Mass Index (BMI) was 44 kg/m2 and 37 kg/m2, respectively. They underwent a sleeve gastrectomy and reached a BMI of 28 kg/m2, 18 months after the operation, with more than 10% improvement in their VEF. The second patient had a gastric leak, due a stapler failure, and finally underwent an uneventful total gastrectomy after unsuccessful endoscopic procedures.
This is a difficult question but the simplest is the best in this scenario. For this reason, we preferred sleeve gastrectomy instead of gastric bypass. However, we had a dreadful complication in our second case due to a technical problem but, at the end, the gastric leak was solved and the patient was able to experiment the benefits of a significant loss of his weight.
If we focus on functional heart changes, VEF increase is perhaps one of the most relevant indicators, and it has been highlighted in other cases.4,6 Nowadays, is appropriate to confirm the durability of this benefit and how is the long-term heart behaviour of these patients with larger prospective studies. In summary, BS offers an important improvement in obese patients with DCM. Thus, it should be consider when other weight loss approaches were unsuccessful because bariatric
operations are quite safe and effective at the present time.
Obes Res Open J. 2014; 1(1): 1-3. doi: 10.17140/OROJ-1-101