Obesity Keeps Patients From Needed CT Scans After Surgery

Obesity Keeps Patients From Needed CT Scans After Surgery
TUESDAY, Nov. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Some obese patients whosuffer complications after gastric bypass surgery are too big for CTscanners and other diagnostic imaging equipment, U.S. researcherswarn.
They found that about 27 percent of patients weighing more than 450pounds who needed imaging to diagnose a problem after surgery could notfit on the equipment.
"When patients weigh more than 450 pounds, standard diagnostic imagingoften cannot be used. In these cases, physician must resort to other meansof diagnosis, such as exploratory surgery or using less accurate or moreinvasive techniques," Dr. Raul N. Uppot, an assistant radiologist atMassachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and instructor of radiology atHarvard Medical School in Boston, said in a prepared statement.
He and his colleagues analyzed the cases of 44 patients weighing morethan 450 pounds who had gastric bypass surgery at MGH between June 1999and April 2007.
Of those 44 patients, 12 (27 percent) had post-surgical problems thatrequired imaging but were denied because they were too heavy for theequipment. Some had to have surgery instead, while others had differentkinds of tests.
The study was to be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of theRadiological Society of North America, in Chicago.
"When obese patients cannot be diagnosed using standard-of-care imagingtechniques, then other diagnostic measures have to be instituted. Patientcare may be ultimately affected due to a compromised diagnosis," Uppotsaid.
About 140,000 gastric bypass procedures were performed in the UnitedStates in 2005, according to the American Society for BariatricSurgery.
"When an obese person is contemplating gastric bypass surgery, he orshe should consider that they will need follow-up imaging but may not beable to get the appropriate tests," Uppot said.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and KidneyDiseases has more about gastrointestinal surgery for obesity.