Monmouth Medical Center Performs New Incisionless Procedure to Treat Weight Regain After Gast...( LONG BRANCH N.J. April 8 2008 /- ...),Health

LONG BRANCH, N.J., April 8, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Monmouth Medical Center has become one of the first hospitals in the United States and the only hospital in New Jersey to offer a new incisionless procedure to reverse weight gain after gastric bypass surgery.

Steven Gorcey, MD, division chief of Gastroenterology at Monmouth Medical Center and Frank Borao, MD, chief of Minimally Invasive Surgery and medical director of Monmouth's Bariatric Surgery Program, performed the first two procedures on February 29. The incision-free procedure, which physicians have coined "ROSE" (Restorative Obesity Surgery, Endolumenal), reduces the size of a patient's stomach pouch and stoma to the original post-gastric bypass proportions to help them back onto the path of weight loss.

"Gastric bypass patients work very hard to manage their weight and adjust their lifestyle after surgery," Dr. Gorcey said. "Sometimes, through no fault of their own or their surgeon, the benefits of the bypass procedure are not permanent." He added, "To date, revision options have been expensive, difficult to perform and risky for the patient, effectively leaving them without any treatment options. Now, with this new incisionless procedure being offered at Monmouth Medical Center, we have a new and dramatically less invasive way to correct a key cause of weight regain."

Gastric bypass surgery offers the most effective means possible to lose weight. It is not, however, always a permanent fix. Up to 44 percent of patients who undergo gastric bypass begin to regain weight - and the dangerous co-morbidities associated with it - a few years after their initial operation.

Studies show that post-gastric bypass weight regain sometimes occurs because the stomach pouch and the opening to the small intestine (the stoma) slowly stretch out, allowing the patient to eat more without feeling full. Invasive procedures to restore the anatomy to the original post-surgery proportions have been
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