2.4.3.0 Metabolic Surgery
Recommendations
13.67 Metabolic surgery may be considered for the treatment of adolescents with type 2 diabetes who are markedly obese (BMI >35 kg/m2) and who have uncontrolled glycemia and/or serious comorbidities despite lifestyle and pharmacologic intervention. A
13.68 Metabolic surgery should be performed only by an experienced surgeon working as part of a well-organized and engaged multidisciplinary team including surgeon, endocrinologist, nutritionist, behavioral health specialist, and nurse. A
The results of weight-loss and lifestyle interventions for obesity in children and adolescents have been disappointing, and no effective and safe pharmacologic intervention is available or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in youth. Over the last decade, weight-loss surgery has been increasingly performed in adolescents with obesity. Small retrospective analyses and a recent prospective multicenter nonrandomized study suggest that bariatric or metabolic surgery may have beneļ¬ts in obese adolescents with type 2 diabetes similar to those observed in adults. Teenagers experience similar degrees of weight loss, diabetes remission, and improvement of cardiometabolic risk factors for at least 3 years after surgery (149). No randomized trials, however, have yet compared the effectiveness and safety of surgery to those of conventional treatment options in adolescents (150). The guidelines used as an indication for metabolic surgery in adolescents generally include BMI >35 kg/m2 with comorbidities or BMI >40 kg/m2 with or without comorbidities (151-162). A number of groups, including the Pediatric Bariatric Study Group and the Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (Teen-LABS) Study have demonstrated the effectiveness of metabolic surgery in adolescents (155-161).