Background

Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy (LSG) is the most common procedure performed by bariatric surgeons. It involves multiple fires of a laparoscopic stapler across the stomach. The use of a single fire laparoscopic stapling device can potentially decrease operative time, immediate postoperative nausea and vomiting and hospital length of stay.

Methods

132 patients who had laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy at a single institution were selected. Operative time, requirement for postoperative antiemetics, hospital length of stay were evaluated and compared against single fire stapler, multiple fire powered stapler and multiple fire manual stapler.

Results

The use of a single fire stapler has significantly reduced operative time by at least 12 minutes in comparison to the multiple fires. Hospital length of stay is not significantly different and was on average 1.4 days. There was a minor increase in the immediate post operative nausea and vomiting overall,however this was greater in those requiring 2 or less doses of antiemetics but decreased the number of patients requiring greater than two doses

Conclusions

Single fire laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy significantly decreases length of operating time with no increase in hospital length of stay or immediate postoperative nausea and vomiting