Today, more and more overweight and especially obese people are turning to weight loss surgery to drop excess pounds. Indeed, these various procedures have proven their effectiveness at enabling men and women to lose weight and, more importantly, to improve their overall health. Unfortunately, many recipients gain back this lost weight, despite their best efforts. But now, a new surgical procedure may keep this weight off for good.

Known as the endoluminal pouch reduction, this non-invasive technique is basically an interior corset. Medical professionals and obesity experts alike hope that this procedure will enable people to lose weight gained back after undergoing traditional stomach-reducing surgery.

With this procedure, bariatric surgeons descend a unique flexible device that includes a camera down patients’ throats to their stomachs. Once there, this device sucks up stomach portions. Then, this device fasten these portions down, forming a circular pattern of pleats. Essentially, this forms a corset; one requiring no surgical incisions and more importantly, a reduced time period in the hospital and for recovery.

While this procedure has demonstrated valuable benefits for patients, it’s only performed on 10-20% of patients. This is because many patients who have undergone bariatric surgery have stretched out their stomachs. This surgical side effect does not affect all recipients; why some are affected and some aren’t is itself a mystery.

However, for those who do qualify for the endoluminal pouch reduction, the procedure may offer the rare opportunity for a surgical “do-over.” Typically, having a second stomach stapling places the patient at risk for a 12-20% risk of bleeding and leakage; there’s a one-5% risk of bleeding and leakage during initial stomach stapling procedures.
http://www.canada.com/Health/Canada+first+stomach+corset+procedure+help+obesity/1327574/story.html