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 2005, a study was published in Obesity Surgery titled “Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding versus open vertical banded gastroplasty: a prospective randomized trial.” that compared the efficacy and safety of two gastric banding techniques: vertical and laparoscopic adjustable.  For data, this study followed 100 patients (50 in each group) over several years.

While average length of stay in the hospital was significantly shorter in the laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LGAB) group than in the vertical banded gastroplasty (VBG) group, and three LGAB patients were converted to gastric bypass procedures, the authors write that “Directly after VBG, 3 patients needed relaparotomies due to leakage, of which one (2%) died.”

Vertical banded gastroplasty was found to be more effective in weight loss, but more patients using LGAB required revisional surgery than did VBG patients (18 vs. 20).  The authors write “2 years after LAGB, 20 patients needed reoperation for pouch dilation/slippage (n=12), band leakage (n=2), band erosion (n=2) and access-port problems (n=4). In the VBG group, 18 patients needed revisional surgery due to staple-line disruption (n=15), narrow outlet (n=2) or insufficient weight loss (n=1). Furthermore, 8 VBG patients developed an incisional hernia.”

Sadly, the manufacturer of the LAP-BAND (a common LAGB system), Allergan, reports drastically lower rates of complications and reoperations in its LAP-BAND Warning Label.

 

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