Men Have Increased Mortality Risk After Bariatric Surgery

TUESDAY, Sept. 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) — For individuals undergoing bariatric surgery, the risk for mortality is increased for men versus women, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, held virtually from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1.

Hannes Beiglböck, M.D., from the Medical University of Vienna, and colleagues examined sex-specific differences among patients deceased with a history of bariatric surgery. Data were included for 19,901 patients with a history of bariatric surgery, with 107,806 patient-years of observation.

The researchers found that 367 patients died (1.8 percent) within the observation period from January 2010 to April 2020. The total rate of mortality was 0.34 percent per year of observation. Compared with women, the sex-specific rate of mortality was increased 2.7-fold in men (0.64 versus 0.24 percent). The 30-day mortality rate was 0.2 percent and was increased fivefold in men versus women (0.5 versus 0.1 percent). The most common comorbidities in men and women were cardiovascular comorbidities (48 and 53 percent, respectively) and psychiatric disorders (47 and 44 percent, respectively), followed by diabetes (41 and 32 percent, respectively), and malignant diseases (29 and 36 percent, respectively).

“Although the absolute risk of dying after bariatric surgery is low, the findings of our large nationwide study highlight a substantially increased mortality risk among men compared to women,” Beiglböck said in a statement. “Women seem more willing to look at surgical weight loss earlier in life, whereas men tend to wait until they have more comorbidities.”

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