Gastric histopathologies in patients undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomies

Abstract

Background: With 80 % of its population overweight, 47.5 % obese, and having the eighth fattest population worldwide, Kuwait has a serious obesity problem. This has led to widespread practice of bariatric surgery, with little or no studies regarding operative findings and patient follow-up. This study aims to identify the prevalent gastric histopathologies of the patients who have undergone laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) at Amiri Hospital, Kuwait. Methods: A retrospective study was done of the gastric pathology specimen results of 656 patients who underwent LSG at Amiri Hospital from 2008 to 2012. Results: Of the 656 patients, the average age was 33 years, and 480 (73.2 %) were female while 176 (26.8 %) were male. The histopathology results identified 488 (74.4 %) cases with chronic gastritis, 63 (9.6 %) with follicular gastritis, and 12 (1.8 %) with atrophic gastritis. A total of 12 (1.8 %) cases showed findings other than gastritis, including four (0.6 %) cases of gastric polyps, three (0.5 %) cases of granulomatous disease, and one (0.2 %) case each of the following: gastro-intestinal stromal tumor, gastro-intestinal autonomic nerve tumor, intestinal metaplasia, collagenous gastritis, and crypt cell apoptosis. Helicobacter pylori was discovered in 48 (7.3 %) of the patients. Conclusions: The majority of gastric histopathology results after LSG in this study had an element of chronic gastritis (74.4 %), which is in keeping with previous studies showing its high prevalence among the obese population. However, a few cases had clinically significant pathologies, and this may alter post-operative management. In view of these results, routine histological examination of the gastric specimens is highly recommended. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York.