Sleeve Gastrectomy in the Surgical Management of Obesity in Cameroon (a Sub-Saharan Country): A Single-institute Retrospective Review of 30-day Postoperative Morbidity and Mortality

Background: Obesity is a major public health concern even in sub-Saharan Africa. In this part of the world, characterized by limited technical platform and resuscitation facilities, sleeve gastrectomy in the surgical management of obesity is a quite new procedure. We aimed to assess intraoperative complications and 30-day postoperative morbidity and mortality of this procedure in our setting.

Methods: This study was conducted in the digestive and laparoscopic surgery unit of the National Insurance Fund Health Centre of Essos (Cameroon, Central Africa region). Retrospectively, we reviewed the medical reports of all patients who had undergone a bariatric surgery through a sleeve gastrectomy from January 2016 to December 2020. The 3 end points were intraoperative complications, postoperative 30-day morbidity, and postoperative 30-day mortality.

Results: We included 21 patients among whom 19 were female (90.5%). Their mean age and body mass index were 40.3 ± 10.8 years and 44.9 ± 7.4 kg/m, respectively. All of them presented with at least 1 comorbidity. All procedures were totally completed laparoscopically with 3 cases of intraoperative complications (14.3%) consisting on bleeding in all of them. The mean operative time was 192.2 ± 52.8 minutes, and the mean hospital stay was 4.7 ± 1.1 days. Eight patients (38.1%) presented a total of twelve 30-day postoperative complications, all of them classified as minor according to the Clavien-Dindo method. The main postoperative morbidity was represented by nausea and vomiting ( = 3, 14.3%). No 30-day readmission was recorded, and the 30-day mortality was nil.

Conclusion: Sleeve gastrectomy in the management of obesity is a safe procedure even in a limited setting like our own.