Does patient compliance with follow-up influence weight loss after gastric bypass surgery? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Gastric bypass surgery is an effective intervention to manage morbid obesity. However, there have been suggestions that patients who do not comply to follow-up lose less weight. This study evaluated the influence of patient's follow-up compliance on weight loss post gastric bypass surgery. From the search of MEDLINE and EMBASE, four studies (n = 365) were identified and majority of these studies concluded that compliance with follow-up leads to increased weight loss. Our meta-analysis of these studies found increase in the percentage of excess weight loss (%EWL) at 1-year post gastric bypass surgery (mean difference 6.38 % %EWL, 95 % CI 1.68-11.15) when patients were compliant with follow-up. Therefore, this review found that continued long-term follow up of gastric bypass patients has the potential to increase postoperative weight loss.