Selection of Bypass vs Sleeve for the Management of Type-2 Diabetes in Severely Obese: Could Ethnicity Play a Role?

PURPOSE: Prospective data was evaluated to see whether bariatric procedure type made any difference to diabetes remission.

METHODS: One hundred eighty-six consecutive patients of Indian ethnicity (M:F 89:97) with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and HbA1c > 6.5 were assessed before and at 1 year following surgery. Age, BMI, C-peptide and duration of diabetes (ABCD - described by WJ Lee), insulin use, baseline HbA1c, and % weight loss were tested as modifiers. We present remission rates (HbA1c ≤ 6.0%) and between group remission odds ratio (OR) and adjusted OR after controlling for key modifiers.

RESULTS: Patients selecting RYGB (n = 113) vs SG (n = 73) were older (50.7 vs 44.2 years), had a lower BMI (44.1 vs 46.7), lower C-peptide (3.5 vs 4.7 ng/ml), greater duration of diabetes (8 vs 3 years), and higher HbA1c (8.90 and 7.9%) respectively p < 0.05 for all (combined R2  = 0.38). Weight loss at 1 year was 27 and 30% for RYGB and SG respectively (p = 0.01). Remission at 1 year was achieved by 37% of patient selecting RYGB and 74% for the SG (OR = 0.21, 95% CI 0.11-0.41, p < 0.001). After adjusting for ABCD, the adjusted OR (AOR) still favored the SG (AOR = 0.32, 0.14-0.74, p = 0.01), and adjustment for HbA1c and weight loss (AOR 0.4, 0.17-0.95, p = 0.038) attenuated the effect.

CONCLUSION: The analysis suggests SG may be superior to RYGB in this Indian population. Ethnicity may play a role in predicting the response to bariatric surgery and hence the choice of procedure. A randomized controlled trial is needed to clarify the relative benefit.