title: Bariatric surgery in obese adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Bariatric surgery is gaining acceptance as an effective and well tolerated treatment of morbid obesity in adults yet experience in obese children is still lacking. The purpose of this review is to highlight recent findings in this exciting field and identify the knowledge gaps.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One randomized controlled trial and several case series have been published in the last 2 years regarding bariatric surgery for obese adolescents. These studies demonstrate relative safety along with significant weight loss. In addition, the vast majority of obesity-related comorbidities are resolved following these procedures. Adverse psychological effects of these procedures are probably more common than those in adults and need to be addressed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These publications indicate that bariatric surgical procedures, mainly gastric banding and gastric bypass, when performed on the right patients by skilled surgeons along with the appropriate ancillary staff, show positive metabolic effects and are well tolerated. Precise patient selection criteria, choice of the procedure and the extent of the multidisciplinary preoperative and postoperative care, are yet to be defined.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Israel.
authors.forename: Andrei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keidar
authors.forename: Lior
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hecht
authors.forename: Ram
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weiss
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D050110:Bariatric Surgery / Q000009:adverse effects; D015897:Comorbidity; D006801:Humans; D009767:Obesity, Morbid / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology / Q000601:surgery*; D018579:Patient Selection; D015431:Weight Loss