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Types of Infections Due to Gastric Bypass Surgery

When attempts to lose weight through diet and exercise fail, doctors sometimes recommend gastric bypass surgery to their obese patients. However, gastric bypass surgery is not without potential complications, like infections. And since gastric bypass surgery sometimes consists of cutting into the abdomen, abdominal infections, as well as other infections are a possibility.

  1. Gastric Bypass Surgery

    • Gastric bypass surgery is also known as the Roux-en-Y procedure. It can be performed via two different techniques, currently: traditional (open abdominal surgery) and laparoscopic (through smaller abdominal incisions).

    Method Determines Infection Risk

    • In the traditional method, the patient's abdomen is cut open in order to allow for cutting and splicing of a portion of the stomach as well as two portions of the small intestines. This increases risk of abdominal and skin infections.

      The laparoscopic option---due to its smaller abdominal incisions---offers a shorter recovery period and less infection potential to gastric bypass surgery patients than the traditional method. However, infection is still a risk. Lung infection is a possibility with both methods.

    Abdominal Wall (Deep-wound) Infections

    • In 2001, Lehigh Valley Hospital conducted a study on adults immediately following their gastric bypass surgery. Approximately 16 percent of the study's adults went on to contract a deep-wound infection as a result of their gastric bypass surgery, highlighting the potential for this type of infection as a result of gastric bypass.

      The study, displayed on the U.S. National Institute of Health website, also emphasized that those participants experiencing deep-wound infections incurred approximately $21,000 more in medical expenses as a result of their infection. In addition, they increased their hospital stay by almost 12 days and their risk of mortality by 5.9 percent.

    Skin Infections

    • Skin can become infected as a result of infectious agents the gastric bypass patient was exposed to during surgery or hospital recovery. Skin infection can also occur due to irritations that develop around port and incision areas, or as a result of excess skin folds that develop later, due to weight loss from the surgery. These skin folds can produce fungal infections, sometimes requiring the removal of the excess skin to address the problem permanently.

    Lung Infections

    • Lung infections (pneumonia and atelectasis) are also possible due to gastric bypass surgery. But coughing and breathing deeply can help to fight such surgery-related lung infections, according to a surgery booklet from the South Miami Hospital. In addition, after released to go home, the process of walking around will also help to increase lung capacity and help to fight such infections.

    Infection Risk Reduction

    • A new gastric bypass surgery option, featured February 2009 at CNN.com, and entitled "Use of natural openings may ease weight-loss surgery," may help in the reduction of infection during gastric bypass surgery.

      The natural orifices method, according to Dr. Santiago Horgan (the director of the University of California at San Diego's Centers for Obesity and Future of Surgery, and the man behind the effort to reduce surgery trauma), helps reduce infection potential, since no external incision is made in this type of surgery. Instead, the surgeon enters the body either through the mouth or the vagina, of the female patient, reducing infection potential.

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