The yield, effectiveness and safety of gastroscopy in management of early postbariatric upper gastrointestinal pain

BaCKgrOunD: upper gastrointestinal (gi) symptoms are prevalent among patients after -bariatric surgeries. gastroscopy is an important procedure to investigate symptoms. Our primary aim was to evaluate the yield, effectiveness and safety of gastroscopy procedure obtained in a 3-months period after bariatric operation for exploring upper gi symptoms origin. MeThODS: Single center, retrospective study at the eMMS nazareth hospital from 2010 to 2018. all patients who underwent gastric-bypass (either roux-en-Y[r-en-Y] or Mini-gastric bypass [MgB]) and who experienced early upper gi symptoms were included in the study. reSuLTS: a total of 428 were included in the study. among them, 154 patients (36%) underwent r-en-Y surgery and 274 (64%) underwent MgB. Baseline characteristics were similar in the two groups. The mean age in the r-en-Y group was 42.3±10.8 vs. 42.8±11.2 in the MgB group. Thirty-nine patients underwent gastroscopy, more in the r-en-Y group compared to MgB group (11.6% vs. 7.6%, P<0.005). in the MgB group, more patients had normal surgical anatomy (23.1%) vs. 12.8% in the r-en-Y group, and the prevalence of erosive esophagitis was 14.2% in the MBg group vs. 5.5% in the r-en-Y group, P<0.005. On the other hand, marginal ulcer was more frequent after r-en-Y than MgB surgery (16.6% vs. 9.5%, P<0.005). no procedural related complication was observed in both groups. COnCLuSiOnS: upper gi symptoms in the early postbariatric surgery period are common with most endoscopic examination revealing normal postsurgical anatomy. in this setting, gastroscopy is safe, without procedural related complications.