Hallazgos endoscópicos en pacientes con obesidad. ¿Existe correlación con los síntomas?

Introduction

Obesity is a public health problem in Mexico. Bariatric surgery has been effective for its management. Preoperative endoscopy is required to detect any disease that not has been diagnosed. Many obese patients do not present with gastrointestinal symptoms, but when they do, they are more intense. There have been few evaluations on the relationship between these symptoms and preoperative endoscopic findings.

Objective

To determine the relationship between the preoperative endoscopic findings and the gastrointestinal symptoms in obese patients prior to bariatric surgery.

Materials and methods

A 5-year retrospective and cross-sectional study was performed, that included patients with obesity grade ii with comorbidities, and obesity grade iii or greater, who have undergone preoperative upper endoscopy, and were questioned about the presence or absence of gastrointestinal symptoms. Exclusion criteria: < 18 years, > 65 years, pregnancy, breastfeeding and serious or terminal underlying disease. The correlation between the symptoms and endoscopic findings was calculated using phi coefficient, with P<.05 being statistically significant.

Results

The study included 53 patients. The mean age was 45 ± 9 years (range: 23-61); with 22 males and 31 females. The mean Body Mass Index was 49.1 kg/m² (range: 37.5-92.5). Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy showed some kind of finding in 83.01% (n = 44), and 16.98% (n = 9) normal endoscopy. The phi coefficient reported a positive correlation (rϕ = 0.271, P=.049).

Conclusions

There is statistically significant positive correlation between the symptoms presented in obese patients for bariatric surgery and endoscopic findings.