Our bariatric surgery team under the direction of Dr. Christou, the only full-time bariatric surgeon in Canada offers hope with the authority based on more than 40 years of bariatric surgery experience. Up to February 7th 2002, Dr. Christou offered open RYGBP. Open bariatric surgery leads to a wound infection and/or incisional hernia in 1 out of every 4 patients! The only way to eliminate this complication is to avoid making a large cut down the middle of the belly and perform the operation via a laparoscopic approach (keyhole surgery).
After visiting with experts in laparoscopic and bariatric surgery (Dr. Michel Gagne NY, one of our former residents, Dr. Philip Schauer Pittsburgh, Dr. Kelvin Higa, California, and others) over a 3 year period Dr.Christou performed the first laparoscopic RY Isolated gastric bypass at the McGill University Health Center on February 8th 2002.
In the RY gastric bypass we join the small bowel to the small vertical oriented gastric pouch (the gastrojejunostomy) by sewing this by hand as shown at left. This permits the creation of an extremely small new stomach ~10 ml or the size of our thumb. Such a small new stomach has less chance of enlarging in 2-3 years allowing more food intake and weight regain. Remember that the only way to permanently reduce your weight is to permanently reduce the amount of food (calories) that you can eat. Our patients followed up to 18 years show an excess weight loss of 78%. This means that if a patient is carrying 100 pounds of extra weight, he/she will lose at least 78 pounds and keep them off for at least 18 years (the longest patient followup). Some reviews that claim that the gastric bypass and laparoscopic band result in the same weight loss at 5 years are based on studies from centers that create larger gastric pouches (because of the use of stapling instruments) which enlarge further with the passage of time and the adaptation of the human body.
Another claim to “hope with authority” results from our commitment to support the patients for life to ensure that the goal of sufficient weight loss to improve health and reduce the risk of death is achieved. Our team offers continuous post-operative care. In addition, if the first operation chosen by a patient fails to produce the expected results, we have the expertise (with authority) to offer alternative surgical procedures. An example is the patient with a laparoscopic band who fails to lose weight (as happens in up to 30% of patients for whom the laparoscopic band just does not work). In our center, such patients will be offered the laparoscopic RY gastric bypass as an alternative. Indeed, we have performed several surgeries (mostly referrals from other clinics) where we removed the band and converted to a gastric bypass – all laparoscopically.
We are what you might call a “full service center” and make a life-time commitment to our patients to help them achieve their goals – lose their excess weight, regain their health and reduce their relative risk of death compared to staying morbidly obese.
Hope with authority!
