We are no longer accepting cases regarding these products.  Due to a terrible Supreme Court ruling, consumers injured by this product are no longer permitted to sue the manufacturers of this device.  We wish we could help, but the Supreme Court has taken the rights of citizens away to protect the profits of medical device manufacturers.  For more information, please read the following New York Times article entitled “Medical Device Ruling Redraws Lines on Lawsuits.

In a 2002 paper by FD Capizzi et al. titled “Laparoscopic adjustable esophagogastric banding: preliminary results.” published in Obesity Surgery, it is written “Laparoscopic gastric banding is effective in surgical treatment of morbid obesity, but has had the drawback of specific complications, like slippage and gastric erosion. To prevent such complications, modifications have been used, including high retrogastric positioning above the bursa omentalis, complete anterior fixation by gastro-gastric stitches over the band, and reduction of the pouch volume to < or = 15 ml” and “These technical variants may induce dysphagia.”

To study the safety and efficacy of this LAP-BAND technique, Capizzi et al. (2002) reviewed 80 consecutive patients who had undergone laparoscopic adjustable esophagogastric banding between January 1999 and March 2001 at an Italian hospital.

Concerning efficacy, doctors found that “Mean BMI decreased from 45 to 38 after 6 months, remaining at 37 after 24 months, while excess weight was reduced by 50% at 24 months.”

“Complications included 2 cases of slippage: an early one after 24 h, requiring surgical removal, and a late one after 9 months, treated by laparoscopic repositioning. The third complication, a reactive esophageal stenosis, occurred in a transsexual male on estrogen treatment, that needed replacement with a wider Swedish band.”  It is also stated that “Band adjustment was required in 28 patients, one time in 22 cases and twice in the other 6”, representing a 35% reoperation rate.

Due to the fact that reoperations rates such as this have been determined by independent researchers to be significantly higher than those reported in the LAP-BAND Warning Label, a number of LAP-BAND lawsuits have been filed.

 

Our Allergan LAP-BAND Lawsuit Information page is a great place to start if you have any questions about the Allergan LAP-BAND.