Anthropometric and Clinical Profiles of Post-bariatric Patients Submitted to Procedures in Plastic Surgery

Objective: to evaluate the profile of patients submitted to post-bariatric plastic surgery at the North Wing Regional Hospital, Brasília, DF.

Methods: we conducted a prospective, descriptive and analytical study of patients submitted to Roux-en-Y gastroplasty, and subsequently to plastic surgery, from January 2011 to December 2016. We assessed body mass index before gastroplasty and after surgery plastic surgery, postoperative complications and comorbidities.

Results: we studied 139 patients (130 women and nine men), with a mean age of 41 years, who underwent 233 operations. The mean BMI at the time of plastic surgery was 27.44kg/m2. The mean weight loss was 47.02kg and the mean maximum BMI was 45.17kg/m2. The mean time between bariatric surgery and plastic surgery was 42 months. The most important co-morbidities before plastic surgery were arterial hypertension (11.5%), arthropathy (5.4%), diabetes mellitus (5%) and metabolic syndrome (4.3%) (p<0.01). Of the 139 patients operated on, 76.97% underwent abdominoplasty followed by mammoplasty (42.46%), rhytidoplasty (17.27%) and brachioplasty (13.67%). Fourteen (13.08%) patients underwent herniorrhaphy combined with abdominoplasty. We performed anchor abdominoplasty in 19.42%. The rate of postoperative complications was 26.65%.

Conclusion: the epidemiological profile of post-bariatric patients who underwent plastic surgery was similar to that reported in the literature, except for the low rate of associated surgeries and postoperative complications. Plastic surgery in post-bariatric patients has led to an improvement in the quality of life in most of these patients.