Our Clinical Focus
By now, the U.S. obesity problem has been well documented: Roughly 65% of adults between ages 20 and 74 are too heavy – 127 million are overweight, 60 million are obese and 9 million are severely obese, according to the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The estimated prevalence of obesity, specifically, has doubled from the time of the 1976-1980 survey to the most recent figures from the 1999-2002 survey: Back then, 15% of the population was obese; today, 31% is.
And yet, it is estimated that less than 1 in 500 candidates for obesity surgery have opted for the surgery. There are many reasons for this, among them the concern about the safety of today's most popular surgical procedure to treat obesity, the gastric-bypass operation called the Roux-en-Y.
The Lap-Band® System
Santa Barbara, California based Inamed Corp., in partnership with leading Bariatric surgeons around the world, developed the Lap-Band® System to eliminate many of the known operative risks associated with the Roux-en-Y procedure.
The LAP-BAND® System creates a new, small stomach pouch and leaves the larger part of the stomach below the band so the food storage area in the stomach is reduced, and the pouch above the band can hold only a small amount of food. The band also controls the stoma (stomach outlet) between the two parts of the stomach. The size of the stoma regulates the flow of the food from the upper to the lower part of the stomach. When the stoma is smaller, you feel full sooner and have a feeling of satiety so you are not hungry between meals.
The LAP-BAND® System is the least invasive, safest and the only adjustable and reversible surgical weight-loss option available in the United States. It helps achieve sustained weight loss by placing an adjustable band around the upper part of the stomach to reduce its capacity. We believe it also creates an opportunity to perform bariatric surgery on an outpatient basis. We are already witnessing a steady migration to outpatient surgery using the Lap-Band® System.
The Lap-Band® procedure has experienced one death per 2,000 cases, according to Journal of the American College of Surgeons, about
one-tenth the death rate for the Roux-en-Y.
Rising Demand
According to the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, the total number of bariatric surgery procedures has grown at a 43.5% compounded annual growth rate from 20,000 procedures in 1999 to an estimated 175,000 in 2005. The total number of gastric banding procedures in particular has grown at a 60.9% compounded annual growth rate from an estimated 6,000 procedures in 2002 to an estimated 25,000 procedures in 2005.
The rising cost of obesity-related illnesses is prompting insurers to consider covering additional surgical treatments for obesity, in hopes that the savings in future health-care costs will exceed the cost of the procedure.
The increasing awareness of adjustable gastric banding, the continued rise in obesity rates, and the early adoption by some carriers to cover the procedure all suggest that the accelerating demand for adjustable gastric banding should continue for years to come.