There are several procedures to help obesity patients lose weight and improve their health. One of these procedures is the gastric sleeve or sleeve gastrectomy.
What is a gastric sleeve?
A gastric sleeve is a so-called restrictive procedure, or stomach reduction. This type of procedure causes the patient to feel satisfied faster, and therefore to eat less.
Where the gastric bypass divides the stomach into a small reservoir and a non-functional remaining stomach, in a sleeve surgery the stomach is largely removed. What remains, is a narrow, tubular stomach. The food still enters through the stomach entrance and leaves the stomach via the pyloric to the duodenum. The main difference is that the stomach content is much smaller, causing the patient’s feeling of hunger to decrease much faster.
Who benefits from a gastric sleeve?
The gastric sleeve is a relatively new, but very successful procedure.
Patients with severe or extreme obesity are eligible for gastric reducing operations such as a gastric sleeve. In general, these surgeries are only recommended for a BMI of 40 or more, but if the obesity patient also suffers from associated diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, OSAS or arthralgia, patients with a BMI of 35 or more are also eligible.
In cases of extreme obesity, the gastric sleeve can be a first procedure in a longer trajectory. Thanks to the sleeve gastrectomy, patients with extreme obesity can lose many kilos, after which a bypass is performed to lower the BMI even further.
The patient must be at least 18 years of age and willing to lose weight under supervision. The operation is only successful if accompanied by a dietary change. The Obesity Center Brussels can assist the patient in this.
The procedure
In a gastric sleeve operation, the surgeon removes up to 80 percent of the stomach from the body. A narrow, tubular stomach remains. The operation is performed laparoscopically and under general anesthesia. The operation lasts 40 minutes on average. The small scars recover quickly.
Dr. Yannick Nijs
Obesity surgeon
St-Michel Europe Hospitals
150 Linthoutstraat, 1040 Brussels
+32 470 588 537
+32 2 614 37 20