Gastrointestinal consequences of bariatric surgery The Roux-en-Y gastric bypass unveiled

Bariatric surgery is defined as surgery for the treatment of morbid obesity. Although it is very effective when it comes to weight loss and remission of comorbidities, bariatric surgery also has complications, both in the short and the long term. This thesis studied the gastrointestinal complications of bariatric surgery in general and of the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in particular.
It was first assessed what the prevalence of several known complications such as gallstone disease and ulcer disease is in this population. Furthermore, the severity of gastrointestinal symptoms two years after gastric bypass was studied. Next, difficulties that may arise in the diagnostics of gastrointestinal complications were studied. This included the diagnostic yield of upper endoscopy and the validity of faecal tests after gastric bypass. Finally, suggestions for the treatment of anastomotic leakage were done and a study is presented that is designed to study the effectiveness of ursodeoxycholic acid in the prevention of symptomatic gallstone disease after bariatric surgery.