Regarded by many as an “infant branch” of medicine, bariatric surgery has taken big steps (not baby steps, pun intended) towards worldwide acceptance as a possible treatment in certain patients.
These steps have been taken by many types of surgical innovations, medical breakthroughs and overall scientific prowess. One of these steps has been gaining considerable interest as a treatment alternative that drastically reduces food intake, weight and obesity-associated co-morbidities. Many recent papers’ results have incited patients to seek bariatric surgery as an alternative to obesity.
It seems that this year (and the next) will be the one that bariatric surgery revels in. The one where it gets to flex its muscles and starts expanding, providing more research and more results that could potentially setup bariatric surgery as one of the gold standard treatments for obesity and morbidly obese patients.
The California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF) is in charge of carefully analyzing the existing published data of any given medical treatment, it does so in order to publish a recommendation, establishing said treatment as an acceptable and scientifically backed-up alternative.
The criteria that CTAF follows whenever deciding on recommending a procedure are the following:
- The technology must have final approval from the appropriate government regulatory bodies.
- The scientific evidence must permit conclusions concerning the effectiveness of the technology regarding health outcomes.
- The technology must improve the net health outcomes.
- The technology must be as beneficial as any established alternatives.
- The improvement must be attainable outside the investigational settings.
Additional promising news is the result of a survey of Cleveland Clinic physicians and researchers has shown that they think bariatric surgery for diabetes treatment is “the most important medical innovation for 2013”. Philip Schauer, MD, director of the Bariatric and Metabolic institute at Cleveland Clinic said that “it’s an effective treatment for diabetes, not just for weight loss”.
An excerpt from the ASMBS.org website reads:
The panel made its decision based on the merits of different innovations including devices, diagnostics, drugs, procedures and information technology advances. One hundred and fifty nominations of emerging technologies were reviewed and the benefits of bariatric surgery led to its recognition as the top medical innovation.
Our hopes and expectations for this next year are: newer and better surgical techniques, more published evidence, and most importantly, more happy and healthy patients!