Managing Bariatric Surgery Complications at a Third Level Public Hospital in Panamá

Background: Surgical complications are devastating both for patients and treating surgeons. When complications occur after bariatric procedures, due to specific characteristics of this population, management, although multidisciplinary, should always be led by a surgical team. Methods: We present major complications treated at our general surgery service over a seven-year period. Case series: We present five cases that were treated at our service after a bariatric procedure was performed. Two patients were operated on in another country and two more at another service. Three patients showed perforation and leak-related complications. One patient died due to refeeding syndrome complications after revisional surgery. Conclusions: Optimal preoperative evaluations and surgical planning are mandatory for any type of surgery including bariatric procedures, and attempting adequate and well-established surgical techniques extensively described in the medical literature is associated with better outcomes. It is also our understanding that easy channels of communication between patients and treating surgeons could avoid delays in detecting and treating life-threatening conditions.