Obesity: a tool to predict weight loss after bariatric surgery

Lille researchers announced on Tuesday, September 5 that they have put online a tool capable of predicting the weight loss at five years of people suffering from obesity, in order to inform their choice before considering bariatric surgery, and to improve their medical monitoring.

Weight, height, age, smoker/non-smoker, type of diabetes and type of intervention, immediate benefit of weight loss and stabilization phase: this tool presented by the Lille University Hospital with researchers from the University of Lille, Inria (National Institute for Research in Digital Sciences and Technologies), Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) questions “seven predictive attributes” which draw on screen the curve of a patient according to the planned surgery.

Engineers from Inserm and a mathematician used data from 1,500 patients operated on and followed at the Lille University Hospital since 2006 to develop this “decision support tool” based on an algorithm as part of a European project (IMI Sophia), initiated three years ago.

The performance of this algorithm, developed by artificial intelligence, has been validated by data from more than 10,000 patients followed in France and abroad (Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil) . The tool is accessible at https://bariatric-weight-trajectory-prediction.univ-lille.fr and the results of this study were published in the British scientific journal The Lancet Digital Health on August 29.

“We wanted a communication tool,” said Professor François Pattou, director of the Inserm “translational research on diabetes” unit during a press conference.

"We have people asking us, 'What if I have surgery, what will it do?' Before, the doctors said “you will lose 30% of your weight” (…) In the head of the doctor it means something, but it is not transmissible”, indicated this doctor who co-directed the project with Philippe Preux, head of the Inria project-team. “If the weight loss is interesting, that means that it is interesting to go there”, testified Guillaume Veret, a patient who went from 135 to 88 kg after a stomach reduction operation at 36 years ago. at 7 years old. "The operation is not a miracle solution, behind it there is a lot of work that must be done over the long term: vitamin supplementation and lifelong physical activity, diet, rhythms, etc.", he recalled. .