Engaging with a rural Aboriginal community to identify strategies to improve oral health within their community: a qualitative study.

Background: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders bear a higher burden of oral disease compared to non-Indigenous persons. Rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are further disadvantaged due to service access difficulties. This study, initiated by community concern for oral health identified through its Health Action Group, aimed to explore a rural Aboriginal community's strategies to resolve oral health problems.

Managing oral health care and prevention: The experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living in a rural community in Queensland, Australia.

Objective: To understand the experience of rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in engaging with oral health care services and programs in order to support the development of oral health services and prevention programs that better meet their needs.

Design: The study used a qualitative research design, which aims to describe participants' lived experience of engaging with oral health services and prevention programs in a rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 participants.

Factors influencing the perceived importance of oral health within a rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in Australia.

Background: Indigenous Australians suffer from higher rates of oral disease and have more untreated dental problems and tooth extractions than the general population. Indigenous Australians also have lower rates of accessing oral health services and are more likely to visit for a problem rather than a check-up. Multiple issues effect health service and prevention programs including: characteristics of health services such as distances to health services; existence of social and cultural barriers; available wealth and social support; and, characteristics of the individual and community including the importance given to the disease.

Tumor growth factor expression in obesity and changes in expression with weight loss: another cause of increased virulence and incidence of cancer in obesity.

Background: Obesity is associated with increased tumorigenesis. Previously, we demonstrated that inflammation in obesity caused cancer fighting cells to display greater surface receptor levels, predisposing them to early cell death. We measured the inflammatory tumor growth factor levels to determine whether inflammation in obesity increases expression of these factors, potentially predisposing these patients to greater rates of neoplasia.

The effect of stoma size on weight loss after laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery: results of a blinded randomized controlled trial.

Background: To determine the effect of different stoma sizes on the percent excess weight loss (%EWL) following laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (LRYGBP).

Methods: Blinded randomized prospective controlled study in two American Society for Bariatric Surgeons-designated Centers of Excellence hospitals. Two hundred gastric bypass patients between January 2005 and September 2005 were prospectively randomized into two groups of 100 patients each in the operating room, after the induction of anesthesia.

A randomized trial of bupivicaine pain pumps to eliminate the need for patient controlled analgesia pumps in primary laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

Background: The use of a bupivicaine pain pump has previously been reported to lower costs to hospitals, while providing similar pain relief to opioid-based patient controlled analgesia (PCA) pumps. However, these benefits have not been investigated in laparoscopic bariatric surgery.

Methods: We prospectively randomized 40 laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGBP) patients into two groups.

Incidence of gastroenterostomy stenosis in laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass using 21- or 25-mm circular stapler: a randomized prospective blinded study.

Background: Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is the most common bariatric procedure performed in the United States today. The most common early complication after laparoscopic Roux-en-Y is stenosis. No randomized studies have compared the effect of the different staplers on the incidence of stenosis or on long-term weight loss.

A case-controlled matched-pair cohort study of laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and Lap-Band patients in a single US center with three-year follow-up.

Background: Open or laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP) is the most common operation for treatment of morbid obesity in USA. The laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (LAGB) has been the most common bariatric operation performed worldwide. The LapBand was approved for use in USA in July 2001.

Efficacy of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in morbidly obese patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery.

Background: Patients undergoing gastric bypass are at risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) due to multiple risk factors including obesity and abdominal surgery. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of inpatient VTE prophylaxis in morbidly obese patients undergoing gastric bypass and the incidence of symptomatic VTE following discharge.

Methods: A retrospective chart review of patients undergoing gastric bypass from August 2000 to August 2001 was performed.

Comparison of recovery time after open and laparoscopic gastric bypass and laparoscopic adjustable banding.

Background: Laparoscopy is believed to reduce recovery time and patient discomfort following bariatric surgical operations. This study tests that hypothesis.

Methods: 60 randomly selected bariatric surgery patients, consisting of 20 open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP), 19 lap RYGBP, and 21 laparoscopic adjustable banding, were studied.

Sensitivity and specificity of postoperative upper GI series following gastric bypass.

Background: Routine postoperative GI series has been common before discharging gastric bypass patients. 78,000 operations were performed in the USA in 2002. At 75 dollars each, the total annual expenditure for the upper GI series approaches 6 million dollars.

Perceived psychosocial outcomes of gastric bypass surgery: a qualitative study.

Background: Attempts to understand postoperative psychosocial changes in the lives of individuals who have undergone gastric bypass surgery for morbid obesity have 1) been guided by constructs emanating from the assumptions of researchers, and 2) have resulted in fragmented conclusions that catalogue changes without theoretically integrating them.

Materials And Methods: Using unstructured and semi-structured interviews and in-depth focus groups, 31 patients were asked in an open-ended fashion about the ways, if any, in which gastric bypass surgery had affected their lives. Grounded theory methodology was utilized in order to identify emergent themes and their interrelations, and build a meaningful, comprehensive theory of life after gastric bypass.

Medical and surgical options in the treatment of severe obesity.

Weight loss programs, diets, and drug therapy have not shown long-term effectiveness in treating morbid obesity. A 1992 statement from the National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference affirmed the superiority of surgical over nonsurgical approaches to this condition. Bariatric surgical procedures work in 1 of 2 ways: by restricting a patient's ability to eat (restrictive procedures) or by interfering with ingested nutrient absorption (malabsorptive procedures).

A review of psychosocial outcomes of surgery for morbid obesity.

There is consistent evidence to support the notion that morbid obesity poses serious risks to physical health and has a substantial impact on psychosocial well-being. Researchers agree that bariatric surgery is currently the most viable option for successful weight loss and maintenance in the morbidly obese individual. The drastic, major weight loss and alleviation of medical risks that patients typically experience post-surgically are accompanied by psychosocial changes that appear to be equally remarkable.