Definition determines weight regain outcomes after sleeve gastrectomy.

Background: Sleeve gastrectomy (SG) is one of the most commonly undertaken bariatric procedures. Weight regain after bariatric surgery, when significant, may be associated with recurrence of diabetes and deterioration in quality of life. Furthermore, it may be more common after SG than bypass procedures. Yet the understanding of the significance of weight regain is hampered by poor reporting and no consensus statements or guidelines.

Objectives: To illustrate how the lack of a standard definition significantly alters reported SG outcomes and to contribute to the discussion of how weight regain should be defined.

Setting: Counties Manukau Health, a public teaching hospital that performs over 150 bariatric procedures per year.

Methods: A retrospective cohort of SG patients followed up at 5 years was used to illustrate how the presence of multiple definitions in the literature significantly affects outcome reporting for weight regain. Post hoc analyses were used to explore the relationship between weight change and clinical outcomes.

Results: Applying 6 definitions of weight regain to a retrospective cohort of SG patients resulted in 6 different rates ranging from 9%-91%. Post hoc analyses revealed significant associations between weight change and the Bariatric Analysis Reporting Outcome System (BAROS) score as well as patient opinion.

Conclusion: The nonuniform reporting of weight regain appears to significantly affect SG outcome reporting. Development of consensus statements and guidelines would ameliorate this problem. Ideally, research groups with access to large robust databases would aid in the development of any proposed weight regain definitions. In the interim, bariatric literature would benefit by all published series clearly reporting how weight regain is defined in the study population.