Risk Assessment for wls

There was an interesting article in the news last week. I know this is a little lengthy, but it is interesting!! -- "Duke University Medical Center suggests that five key characteristics may identify which bariatric surgery candidates are most at risk for potentially fatal complications, HealthDay reports. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery in San Francisco and provide the first 'clinically useful system to help determine which patients would be at highest risk of dying after gastric bypass surgery,' says the lead researcher and director of bariatric suergery at Duke. For the study, researchers analyzed the outcomes of 2,075 gastric-bypass patients at Richmond-based Virginia Commonwealth University between 1995 and 2004. Based on a review of the medical histories of the 31 patients who died within 90 days of surgery, the researchers identified five characteristics associated with an increased risk of death or complications from the gastric bypass: having a BMI great than 50; being male; having hypertension; being over 45; and having a history of or being at risk for blood clots in the lungs. The risk-assessment tool assigns each risk factor one point; patients with the lowest scores have the lowest mortality risk. According to the study, the mortality rate for low-risk patients was 0.31%, compared with 1.9% among medium-risk patients and 7.56% among high-risk patients. The study's authors predict that the new scoring system will have long-term implications for bariatric surgery treatment decisions, noting that some patients may 'risk moving into a higher-risk category' if they put off bariatric surgery and attempt other weight-loss treatments that are ultimately unsuccessful." -- HealthDay / Yahoo! News, 7/7