A recently presented study compared results of the Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (“endoscopic sleeve”) with the laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (“lap band”) and the more invasive laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (“surgical sleeve”). This was a single center study performed at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York including 278 patients who underwent endoscopic sleeve (91), surgical sleeve (120), and lap band (67).
The study found that the endoscopic sleeve patients lost more weight than the lap band patients (17.57% vs. 14.46%). The surgical sleeve patients lost the most weight but required 1.68-3.09 days in the hospital. Importantly, most endoscopic sleeve patients did not require an overnight stay (average length of stay was 0.13 days). What is most striking is that endoscopic sleeve patients had a significantly lower rate of complications compared to the surgical patients (1% vs. 10-11%).
Upshot: The endoscopic sleeve procedure resulted in robust weight loss with advantages of no hospital stay in most cases and a significantly lower rate of complications compared with surgery.