and the disease was less severe than among COVID patients with obesity who had not undergone the surgery, a new retrospective analysis shows.
The research was published in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases.
Because obesity is a well-known risk factor for poor COVID-19 outcomes, Ali Aminian, MD, Bariatric and Metabolic Institute, Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues decided to study whether weight-loss surgery had a bearing on outcomes of patients with COVID-19.
They matched 33 COVID-19 patients who had undergone metabolic surgery with 330 control patients with obesity who were infected with the virus during the first wave of the pandemic.
Surgery was associated with a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalized as a result of COVID-19. None of the surgery patients required intensive care, mechanical ventilation, or dialysis, and none died.
“Patients after bariatric surgery become significantly healthier and can fight the virus better,” said Dr. Aminian in a statement from his institution. “If confirmed by future studies, this can be added to the long list of health benefits of bariatric surgery.”
COVID-19 is a wake-up call for the consequences of obesity
Dr. Aminian said in an interview that COVID-19 is a “wake-up call to show the public and health care professionals that obesity is a major health problem and has multiple health consequences.”
More than 300 articles in the literature show that obesity is a major risk factor for poor outcomes following COVID-19 infection. Dr. Aminian said the pandemic has “improved public awareness about the consequences of obesity.”
Compared with last year at his institution, the intake of new patients “who would like to join a program to have surgery or have some tools to help them to lose weight is almost double,” he noted.
Furthermore, referrals to their unit from primary care physicians, as well as from endocrinologists and cardiologists, for bariatric surgery nearly doubled in recent months.
Although the unit had to stop all bariatric surgeries for around 6 weeks in April because of COVID-19, it has performed the same number of procedures this year as in 2019 and 2018.
Because of the recent surge in COVID cases in Ohio, bariatric procedures are once again on hold. “Elective operations that require hospital beds after surgery have been paused to provide beds for patients who have COVID-19,” he explained.
Small sample size, study should be repeated
For their study, Dr. Aminian and colleagues examined the records of 4,365 patients at the Cleveland Clinic Health System who tested positive for the virus between March 8 and July 22, 2020.
Of these, 1,003 had a body mass index of at least 35 mg/kg2; 482 had a BMI of at least 40. The team identified 33 patients who had previously undergone metabolic surgery, comprising 20 sleeve gastrectomies and 13 Roux-en-Y gastric bypasses.
The surgical patients were propensity matched in a 1:10 ratio with nonsurgical control patients with a BMI of at least 40. The patients were matched on the basis of age, sex, ethnicity, location, smoking status, and history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The mean BMI of surgical patients was 49.1 before their procedure. It fell to 37.2 by the time they tested positive for COVID-19. This compares with an average of 46.7 in the control group at the time they tested positive for the virus.
The team found that 18.2% of metabolic surgery patients were admitted to hospital versus 42.1% of control patients (P = .013).
Moreover, metabolic surgery patients did not require admission to the intensive care unit, nor did they require mechanical ventilation or dialysis, and none died. This compares with 13.0% (P = .021), 6.7% (P = .24), 1.5%, and 2.4%, respectively, of patients in the control group.
Multivariate analysis indicated that prior metabolic surgery was associated with lower hospital admission, at an odds ratio of 0.31 (P = .028), in comparison with control patients with obesity.
Acknowledging the limited sample size of their study, the team wrote: “As this study reflects findings early in the course of the pandemic, it will be of interest to repeat this study with larger data sets and later in the course of the pandemic.”
Continue as many aspects of obesity management as possible during pandemic
Dr. Aminian underlined that, for him, the take-home message from the study is that health care professionals should “ideally” continue all aspects of obesity management during the pandemic, including “medical management, behavioral therapy, lifestyle changes, and access to bariatric surgery.”
This is despite the fact that insurance coverage for bariatric surgery has “always been a challenge for many patients, since many insurance plans do not cover” bariatric procedures, he noted.
In July, the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery issued a statement declaring that obesity surgery should not be considered an elective procedure and should be resumed as soon as it’s safe to do so during any resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The authors disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.