Semaglutide Reduces Weight in Patients with Failed Bariatric Surgery

According to a study published in Obesity, semaglutide effectively triggers weight loss in severely obese patients, including those who have had bariatric surgery to manage weight but have not yielded success.

The study recruited approximately 129 participants with a BMI of 40 or greater. Although 90 participants had never undergone bariatric surgery, the remainder had a history of the procedure but remained severely obese.

Each patient was advised to start with 0.25 mg of semaglutide injected subcutaneously once weekly. The dose for each participant was gradually increased over 24 weeks until they reached a maximum dose of 2.4 mg per week.

The efficacy of the medication was measured based on the percentage of weight loss, changes in BMI, and differences in weight circumference.

Although 129 patients were included in the overall report, one patient died within 48 hours of the first injection; however, the researchers noted that the death was unrelated to the medication. Additionally, 12 patients discontinued treatment due to adverse events, and 4 patients were lost to follow-up, leaving 111 participants. Among the remaining participants, 36 had undergone bariatric surgery in the past.

The study revealed that semaglutide treatment in patients who had bariatric surgery helped achieve a 9.8% reduction in body weight, similar to the 8.7% reduction in weight experienced by the group who had not gotten bariatric surgery.  The average weight loss in the bariatric surgery group was 11.6 kg, compared to 11.2 kg in the non-surgery group.

Beyond that, the changes in BMI were very similar, at 4.3 and 4.1 lower for the surgery and non-surgery groups, respectively.

However, the average reduction in weight circumference in the surgical group was slightly higher at 9.2 cm compared to 7.7 cm.

The researchers revealed that semaglutide is effective irrespective of bariatric surgery status.

“Our study highlights similar results between groups with and without a history of bariatric surgery in terms of weight loss. Similarly, there were no differences in terms of side effects. Therefore, this treatment could be an alternative to avoid another bariatric surgery, as well as a prospect for patients who face difficulty with the failure of a previous treatment. This treatment can also be used as a complement to bariatric surgery for patients with the highest BMI values,” they concluded in the study.