EOSS Features Prominently in The Lancet’s Obesity Management Recommendations



sharma-obesity-edmonton-obesity-staging-system1It would hardly come as a surprise to regular readers that I would be delighted to see the Edmonton Obesity Staging System featured quite prominently in the article on obesity management by Dietz and colleagues in the 2015 Lancet series on obesity.

Here is what the article has to say about EOSS:

“The Edmonton obesity staging system (EOSS) has been used to provide additional guidance for therapeutic interventions in individual patients (table 1). EOSS provides a practical method to address the treatment paradigm. In principle, EOSS stages 0 and 1 should be managed in a community and primary care setting. Recent data from the USA suggest that 8% of patients with severe obesity (BMI ≥35 kg/m²) account for 40% of the total costs of obesity, whereas the more prevalent grade 1 obesity accounts for a third of costs. These findings suggest that greater priority should be accorded to EOSS stages 3 and 4, resulting in greater focus on pharmacological and surgical management delivered in specialist centres.”

These recommendations are not surprising, as EOSS was specifically designed to provide a much better representation of how “sick” a patient is rather than just how “big” she is.

This is why EOSS has now found its way not just into the 5As of Obesity Management framework of the Canadian Obesity Network but also into the treatment algorithm of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.

To download a slide presentation on how EOSS works click here.

@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB