Article preview from Medtech Insight - September , 2011
A new position statement from the International Diabetes Federation that endorses bariatric surgery as a medically indicated therapeutic option for diabetes represents an important philosophical shift for this field, according to Francesco Rubino, MD, chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Article preview from Medtech Insight - September , 2011
Despite ongoing advances in surgical tools and techniques for the treatment of obesity, the field remains frustrated by access and coverage issues and a dearth of effective minimally invasive treatment options. As a result, obesity researchers are now taking a back-to-basics approach to improve their understanding of the physiological triggers behind obesity.The effort has already yielded fascinating new information about the relationship between bariatric surgery and neurohormonal signaling in the body, with important implications not only for obesity but also for related chronic diseases, including diabetes.
Research shows that bariatric surgery can have an immediate and profound effect on insulin resistance and diabetes symptoms, even before significant weight loss occurs. Based on these findings, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) issued a position statement in April 2011 recommending bariatric surgery as an appropriate treatment option for certain people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity–the first time any major international organization had made recommendations on the use of bariatric surgery as a therapy for T2DM.
To find out more about what the IDF position statement means for the bariatric surgery market, Medtech Insight spoke with Francesco Rubino, MD, chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery and associate professor of surgery at Cornell University's Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Rubino helped pioneer metabolic surgery for T2DM and is currently director of the Diabetes Surgery Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the first academic-based diabetes surgery center in the US. According to Dr. Rubino, the IDF statement represents an important philosophical shift that "changes the concept of eligibility" for bariatric surgery, endorsing surgery, for the first time, as a medically-indicated, lifesaving therapeutic option for selected obese patients with diabetes.
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Medtech Insight newsletter provides insights into the technology and market developments (devices, instrumentation, biomaterials, gene therapy, tissue engineering, etc.) impacting a wide range of surgical and non-surgical clinical practices.
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