The very new procedure, diverted one anastomosis gastric bypass, also named long pouch Roux-en-Y bypass (LPRYGB), was performed in 2013 and published in 2018. First, it has been implemented by Ribeiro and coworkers as a revisional procedure for patients who have failed OAGB due to reflux symptoms. After that, the procedure was performed as a primary procedure. Its first name, diverted one anastomosis gastric bypass, has been grounded in being typical of OAGB, with adding a second entero-enterostomy aiming at diversion of the bile away from the stomach to preclude postoperative bile reflux and GERD [9]. The second name, long pouch Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, has been mentioned in their article published in 2019, since they considered the added entero-enterostomy as a Roux-en-Y diversion [12].
The foundation of our understanding and subsequent practice of this procedure is attributed to scientific meetings with the surgery innovators during 2014 and 2015, where they extensively discussed and demonstrated the technique. Encouraged by the promise it showed, we began implementing this procedure by the end of 2015.
As for the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting practicing this procedure after being introduced by Ribeiro et al. [9, 12]. In our study, for the first time, we compared the outcome of this procedure to the most established bypass surgeries (RYGB and OAGB).
Overall, OAGB and D-OAGB showed outperformance in terms of lower early postoperative adverse events. However, the difference did not reach the level of statistical significance, likely due to the relatively small sample size. This result aligns with the previously reported fewer OAGB-associated adverse events compared to RYGB, which has been attributed to the only anastomosis and the more straightforward anatomical construction found in OAGB [16]. In spite of the presence of a second anastomotic site in the D-OAGB, the surgery doesn’t entail bringing up an intestinal loop up to the gastroesophageal junction, which likely makes up less tension on the site of anastomosis [17]. It is worthy to note that this D-OAGB-associated lower rate of early adverse events, compared to RYGB, comes in the early learning curve of the procedure, with likely lower rates as the learning curve progresses.
The present study showed another point of OAGB and D-OAGB superiority, which was the significantly better weight loss outcome during the first year after surgery. This is consistent with a meta-analysis encompassing 16 studies and 12,445 patients that found that OAGB was associated with a higher postoperative EWL% compared to RYGB [18]. This was explained by the longer BPL in both surgeries compared to that of RYGB.
Notably, a significantly lower number of GERD remissions and a higher number of denovo GERD cases were found in the OAGB group. This is in line with the still-debatable association between OAGB and biliary reflux [19–22]. The bile reflux-associated Barrett’s esophagus and gastric cancer have been described [23, 24], which makes it a non-negligible surgery consequence. For this reason, RYGB has long been regarded as the best therapeutic choice for GERD patients [25–27]. The newly adopted procedure could now be another solution for patients with GERD. It offers efficiency in GERD remission and early weight loss, along with a lower rate of adverse events and denovo GERD occurrence, making it an excellent choice for patients seeking bariatric surgery, especially those with GERD, or risky for GERD and Barrett’s esophagus.
Overall, our work emphasizes the new procedure-associated promising outcome that was reported by Ribeiro et al. [9, 12]. The study is limited by the small sample size. D-OAGB is a new and non-popular procedure, thus limiting the patient’s acceptability of the procedure. The study is also limited by the retrospective design, short-term assessment, and non-objective assessment of GERD. However, we present our experience in a very new procedure that needs to be unveiled by more comparative studies.