Wernicke Encephalopathy After Sleeve Gastrectomy

Abstract

The number of obese patient’s increases, and bariatric procedures have become more common. The total number of these procedures in Poland was 1958 in 2016. Malabsorption, rapid weight loss and vomiting can predispose patients to nutritional deficiencies following surgery. After bariatric surgery, the majority of vitamin and mineral deficiencies seem to be asymptomatic. However, in some cases both reversible and irreversible neurological symptoms may be observed. Punchai et al. observed that the incidence of neurological complications due to vitamin B deficiency was 0.7%. Wernicke Encephalopathy (WE) is an acute disorder resulting from thiamine deficiency and is characterized by neuropsychiatric symptoms such as ataxia, ophthalmoplegia and confusion. We present a case of a 29-year-old woman who developed WE after sleeve gastrectomy. *Corresponding author: Nowak M, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medical Sciences in Zabrze, Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, Tel: +48662072566; E-mail: maria.nowak185@gmail.com Received October 25, 2019; Accepted November 05, 2019; Published November 11, 2019 Citation: Nowak M, Niedziela N, Kubicka-Baczyk K, Adamczyk-Sowa M (2019) Wernicke Encephalopathy after Sleeve Gastrectomy: A Case Report. J Clin Case Rep 9: 1292. Copyright: © 2019 Nowak M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.