The Effect of Follow-up on Reporting Success for Obesity Surgery

Background: Much is written about the importance of follow-up in determining the effect of surgical treatment for obesity upon weight loss. When patients are lost to follow-up, it has been suggested that these patients should be considered as failures. This study was undertaken to determine the effect of incorporating patients not followed in a definition of success for weight loss at one year. Methods: Data from 34 surgical practices were used to study the effect of using two different denominators, patients followed (D_F) or patients eligible (D_E), to define success. The numerator used in both methods was the number of patients with ≤50% EW at 1 year. Results: One-year follow-up was 61% (5091/8356). Success was 67% (3423/5091) when calculated using the denominator patients followed (D_F). No correlation was found between success and follow-up when data within each surgical practice were averaged and used in a correlation analysis. Conclusions: This study does not support the thesis that patients who fail to return for follow-up should be considered as having failed in weight control.