Bariatric surgery in paediatrics--when and how?

Morbid obesity and its rapidly increasing prevalence has became a serious health, social and economic problem not only in Europe, but in other developed countries in the Western world. It is well recognized that conservative treatment usually fails in morbidly obese patients in the long-term. In severely obese patients, the only long-term effective treatment of their obesity and obesity related co-morbidities, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, is bariatric surgery. However, there is neither consensus on how to treat morbidly obese adolescents (including bariatric surgery), nor existing specific child/adolescent guidelines on this topic. This article presents an overview of existing views on bariatric surgery in adolescents as well as some treatment results achieved with bariatric surgery.