Perioperative Bariatric Guidelines

Yesterday, I attended a workshop hosted by the Canadian Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health in Ottawa on harmonisation of clinical practice guidelines in cardio-respiratory diseases.

Once again, I was reminded of the tremendous amount of work required to produce guidelines based on the best published evidence. As readers of this blog are probably well aware, we have Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines in Canada, published in 2006, available online from CMAJ.

Readers with a particular interest in bariatric surgery should be aware of the new comprehensive guidelines for the perioperative nutritional, metabolic, and non-surgical support for the bariatric surgery patient jointly published by the American Association of Clinical Endocriologists, The Obesity Society, and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, also published as a supplement to this month’s issue of OBESITY.

The Writing Committee was co-chaired by Jeffrey Mechanik, Robert Kushner and Harvey Sugerman with broad representation from all three organizations.

The guidelines include over 164 recommendations covering everything from indications and patient selection to nutritional and metabolic management and complications. Recommendations are ranked and rated based on the level of evidence that supports them (an Appendix discusses the relevant clinical evidence extracted from almost 800 references).

Certainly required reading for anyone caring for patients planning to or having recently undergone bariatric surgery.

AMS
Edmonton, Alberta