Background: Success in bariatric surgery is most. often evaluated by a suff
icient loss of excess weight and an improvement in the medical conditions.
The expected increase in quality of life (QoL) after weight loss, however,
has not often been systematically analyzed. BAROS (Bariatric Analysis and R
eporting Outcome System) is a scoring system which, along with easy handlin
g, allows comparisons to be made internationally.
Methods: 386 morbidly obese patients who had undergone bariatric surgery in
our hospital were evaluated with BAROS. Five categories-failure, fair, goo
d, very good, excellent-were taken from the scoring system that BAROS offer
s. This system has three major points: excess weight loss, medical co-morbi
dities and QoL. Points are subtracted for reoperations and defined complica
tions. The operations performed were silastic ring vertical gastroplasty (7
2%), adjustable gastric banding (23%), biliopancreatic diversion (3%), vert
ical banded gastroplasty (1%) and gastric banding of Molina (1%).
Results: In 1991 and 1993, we had a fair result in 3% and 10% of the patien
ts. A good score with a mean of 3.6 to 4.1 was reached in 1992, 1994 and 19
95. In the last 3 years, 1996 to 1998, the mean score was 5.0 to 5.7, which
is a very good result when compared with the scoring key.
Conclusion: BAROS is a valuable tool to access the QoL of patients who have
undergone bariatric surgery.