Howard R, Chao GF, Yang J, et al. - Findings indicate that safety benefits of sleeve gastrectomy persist up to 5 years post-surgery.

• This is a cohort study of a national sample of 95,405 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent sleeve gastrectomy [n = 57,003 (60%)] or gastric bypass [n = 38 ,402 patients (40%)] from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2018.

• Relative to gastric bypass group, at 5 years post-surgery, the sleeve gastrectomy group had a lower cumulative incidence of mortality (4.27% vs 5.67%), complications (22.10% vs 29.03%), and reintervention (25.23% vs 33.57%).

• A higher cumulative incidence of surgical revision at 5 years was seen in those receiving sleeve gastrectomy (2.91% vs 1.46%).

• At 1 year and 3 years post-surgery, the adjusted hazard ratio of all-cause hospitalization and ED use was lower in the sleeve gastrectomy group but was similar between groups at 5 years.

• Lower health care expenditure in sleeve gastrectomy group was evident at 1 year post-surgery ($28, 706 vs $30, 663), but was similar between groups at 3 ($57, 411 vs $58, 581) and 5 years ($86 ,584 vs $85, 762).