It was an honour to be one of only 3 non Americans to be invited to speak at the very first gastric band summit in Orlando, Florida and to join some illustrious names in the field of obesity surgery.
Interestingly, gastric banding in the States has rather lagged behind gastric bypass surgery (primarily as a result of US legislation) but it is envisaged that by 2010 gastric band procedures will surpass those of gastric bypass.
I spoke on 3 topics:
· The history of the gastric band
· The results of gastric band surgery from European centres
· The future of gastric banding – the telemetric (Easyband) band
History of the gastric band
In my first talk on the history of the band, I emphasised the debt we owe to the pioneer Lubomyr Kuzmak who doggedly persisted with the design of an adjustable gastric band and a method to place the band by laparoscopic technique.
The first laparoscopic adjustable gastric band was inserted in Belgium in 1993. The second was implanted by our own surgeon and my good friend, Professor Franco Favretti, one week later on September 8th 1993. It is Franco, however, who has played a key role in the development of gastric banding surgical technique. He has taught all over the world and indeed a number of surgeons at the conference told me they had been mentored by Franco.
Outcome data for gastric banding
In the early developmental period of banding (1993-2000) success was hindered by high band slippage rates (15-30%) and higher erosion rates (1-3%). With evolving implantation techniques recent international and US data show consistently good results with a low complication profile. Slippages rates are 0.3-3% with an erosion rate of less than one percent.
The future of gastric banding
As one of only 2 centres involved in the clinical trial for Easyband, the new telemetric band it was a pleasure to present out excellent results with this new band.
Other topics discussed during the summit included patient selection, band operating techniques, band complications, paediatric gastric bands and patient management and adjustment strategies. I want you to be assured that Healthier Weight is at the forefront of developments in gastric banding and we intend to remain there.
Dr David Ashton November 2008
