Prevalence and impact of dumping syndrome on qol after primary gastric bypass surgery

Introduction: Worldwide gastric bypass is still the most frequent performed weight loss operations for morbid obesity and it's effectively is proven. Although dumping has been widely recognized as complication after RYGB, almost no data are available on the prevalence and the consequences of this syndrome. The aim of this study therefore was to investigate the impact of early and late dumping on quality of life after primary gastric bypass. Methods: From January 2008 till December 2011 all patients who underwent bariatric surgery at the Centre for Obesity at the Medical Centre Leeuwarden were included in a prospective database. All patients were invited for a questionnaire survey. This survey contains questionnaire about demographic characteristics, quality of life questionnaires (RAND-36, HADS, MFI and HFS-II) and a dumping severity score. Results: The questionnaire was filled in by 360 patients (58,4%). Self reported prevalence of early and late dumping was 21,3 and 20.2%, respectively. Patients with early and late dumping had significantly poorer scores on the HADS and RAND-36 compared with patients without dumping. No differences were seen in the MFI-20 scores. The negative effects observed for health related quality of life, fear and depression were of similar magnitude in patients with early and late dumping. In the Hypoglycemia Fear Scale (HFS-II) all 12 subscales were significantly different between patients with or without late dumping (all P<0.001). Conclusion: Early and late dumping has a symptom prevalence of 20% and affects health related quality of life, fear and depression significantly. Furthermore, diabetes mellitus seems to have no relation with dumping symptoms.