Morphofunctional evaluation of the heart of obese patients before and after bariatric surgery.

Background: This study aims to evaluate the effect of weight loss on the physical capacity and the structure and function of the heart after bariatric surgery.

Methods: Forty-three adult obese patients, 31 women (72.1%) and 12 men (27.9%), were submitted to electrocardiogram, ergometric test, and echo Doppler cardiogram at presurgical stage and 1 year after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. The statistical analysis utilized the Wilcoxon, Student's t, and Shapiro-Wilk tests with 5% significance level.

Results: Weight was reduced from 116.5 ± 21.5 to 80 ± 15.9 kg and body mass index from 41.8 ± 4.4 to 28.4 ± 3.8 kg/m(2). Cardiac frequency was reduced from 77.9 ± 9.6 to 70.9 ± 7.8 bpm, systolic pressure from 130 ± 20 to 120 ± 10 mmHg, and diastolic pressure from 80 ± 10 to 80 ± 0 mmHg. Ergometric tests showed distance covered from 378.9 ± 126.5 to 595 ± 140.4 m, metabolic coefficient from 6.7 ± 2.4 to 8.3 ± 2.6 ml O(2)/kg/min, and oxygen consumption (VO(2)) from 23.1 ± 8.4 to 30 ± 10.3 metabolic equivalents of task. The echo Doppler cardiogram showed interventricular septum from 12 ± 2 to 10 ± 1 mm, posterior wall from 11 ± 2 to 10 ± 1 mm, and ventricular mass from 273 ± 85 to 216 ± 60 g. There was improvement in the diastolic function with an increase in the E'/A' and E/A relationship and the ejection fraction with an increase from 70.2 ± 7.2% to 72.9 ± 6.4%.

Conclusions: Bariatric surgery improved physical capacity as well as structural and functional improvement of the heart.