What is stomach stapling?

Houston and Cypress Texas weight loss surgeon, Brad Snyder, describes stomach stapling procedures. Twenty years ago, a procedure called vertical banded gastroplasty (VBG) was performed for weight loss. This involved making an up and down staple line across the upper stomach to separate it from the rest of the stomach and then placing a rubber band around the end of the staple line. This was popular, had moderately good weight loss results, but also came with many problems. These problems included nausea and vomiting, reflux, staple line break down, and weight regain to name a few.

When the adjustable gastric band came out in the early 1990’s, the popularity of the VBG fell because here was a safe operation, with similar weight loss, and less complications. Many of the old VBG operations are being changed to other operations like sleeve and gastric bypass. These revision surgeries are more difficult and should only be done by experienced bariatric surgeons.

Today, the sleeve gastrectomy, which involves removing a part of the stomach to create a “banana” shaped stomach, is becoming more popular primary operation for weight loss.