Gender-related metabolic outcomes of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy in 6-month follow-up

Introduction
Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is recently a leading method in surgical treatment of morbid obesity. The metabolic outcome of intervention may be a result of many factors such as age, gender, preoperative weight loss and dietary restrictions.

Aim
To evaluate gender-related differences in the results of LSG in 6-month follow-up.

Material and methods
The study included 101 patients who underwent LSG at the University Clinical Hospital of Bialystok. Patients were divided and analyzed in 2 groups: males (n = 48) and females (n = 53). The primary analysis included the influence of gender on postoperative weight loss calculated using the percentage of excess weight loss (%EWL) and excess BMI loss (%EBMIL). For secondary outcomes the levels of glucose, insulin, glycated hemoglobin, aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglycerides and C-reactive protein were analyzed.

Results
A significant influence of patients’ gender was proved for both %EWL (p = 0.026) and %EBMIL (p = 0.001). Females had significantly higher %EWL in 6-month follow-up than males (p = 0.0034). The analysis also showed significantly higher %EBMIL for women at 3 and 6 months observation (p = 0.022 and p < 0.001 respectively).

Conclusions
Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is an effective method of obesity treatment especially in terms of postoperative weight loss. Females seem to benefit more from the procedure when analyzing the parameters of body mass reduction. However, further research is needed to provide strong evidence of an association between gender and the results of LSG.