Bariatric surgery decreases hospitalization rates of patients with obstructive lung diseases: a nationwide analysis.

Background: Obesity can worsen outcomes in patients with chronic respiratory diseases.

Objectives: The objective of the study was to determine the impact of bariatric surgery (BaS) on risk of hospitalization due to acute exacerbation (AE) of chronic obstructive lung diseases (OLDs).

Setting: Academic, University-affiliated Hospital; United States.

Methods: Nationwide Inpatient Sample data collected from 2010 to 2015 were examined. Patients were classified as treatment and control groups. Treatment subjects were defined as patients with a previous history of BaS, and control subjects, as patients with a body mass index ≥35 kg/m and without a history of BaS. The primary outcome was hospitalization due to AE of any OLD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and bronchiectasis), and the secondary outcome was the total length of stay (LOS). Univariate analysis and multivariate regression model were performed to assess the difference in outcomes between groups.

Results: We included a total of 2,300,845 subjects: 2,004,804 controls and 296,041 treatments. Univariate analysis showed that the hospitalization rate was significantly lower for the treatment group than that for the control group (3.7% versus 9.8%, P < .0001), confirmed after adjusting for covariates (control versus treatment: odds ratio [OR] = 2.46, P < .0001). Subgroup analysis showed that the treatment group had a lower risk of LOS ≥3 days than controls (69.8% versus 77.4%, P < .0001), confirmed by multivariate analysis (control versus treatment: OR = 1.40, P < .0001).

Conclusions: BaS-induced weight loss may decrease the risk of hospitalization due to AE in patients with OLD, also decreasing the LOS. We acknowledge that this comparison is limited by the nature of the database; hence, further prospective studies are needed to better understand these results.