Allergan's Lap-Band - company maintains product is safe, despite limited study results
Some researchers believe lap-band is unsafe long-term, though weight loss surgery is necessary for survival of some obese patients
The lap-band surgery which got its start nearly 30 years ago may not be as safe as once thought – at least according to one study. A recently published study says it has shown that the lap-band, over long-term, can eat its way into the stomach wall, with nearly 4% reportedly having died from such incidences.
The new study into the lap-band made by Irvine-based Allergan company in California, was performed by researchers in Belgium. The researchers studied 151 individuals, of which one third of them had experienced the complication of the lap-band going through the stomach wall.
Lap-band weight loss surgery is performed by installing a silicon ring around the top portion of the stomach. The adjustable ring constricts the stomach to make it smaller, causing the individual to be forced to eat less and get full faster.
The study was published in the Archives of Surgery, and though the results show a compelling reason to possibly curtail such widespread use of the surgery, propronents of the lap-band argue that there are issues with this particular study. Issues at hand include the fact that the study was only conducted in one hospital with a limited number of people and demographic type. They also only tested half of the people initially involved in the 12 year span.
Allergan, who makes the Lap-Band, responded to the study when speaking to Reuters Health, stating that the lap-band used in the study’s patients was an older model of their their manufactured device, and also noted that medical surgery techniques have evolved since its implementation in weight loss surgery in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s.
Medical experts have also indicated that the kind of information and limited study group is not necessarily indicative of the kind of peer-reviewed research that would initiate immediate change in procedure. More studies are necessary to determine widespread issues with the lap-band.
As far as weight loss-surgeries are concerned, gastric by-pass surgery is still a viable alternative.
[...] says that the band can, over time, eat into the wall of the stomach. It also stated that the lap-band study found that as many as 4% of the participants died as a result. This, according to the researchers, [...]