Post by Mads on Jan 30, 2006 2:42:15 GMT -5
By MARTA FALCONI Associated Press Writer(www.abcgo.com)
ROME Jan 29, 2006 — Vittorio Campati is a 40-year-old restaurant chef. He weighs 308 pounds, likes pasta and sweets and has failed many diets.
His last resort? A balloon inserted into his stomach in a procedure that lasts less than 20 minutes. European doctors hail the technique as a simple, less invasive way to fight obesity.
"I'm having this balloon inserted in the hope of reducing the quantity of food that I eat," Campati said shortly before being sedated at Rome's Polyclinic Hospital Umberto I.
Being a chef makes that hard.
"I eat a lot of carbohydrates and I did several diets, but all of them failed," he said.
Inserted down the patient's throat, a round silicon balloon is filled with a saline solution and remains in the stomach for about six months, when it is deflated and taken out before the material degrades.
"We introduce a balloon of half a liter volume (about a pint) in the stomach and inflate it so it takes up space and helps slow down the eating," said Dr. Nicola Basso, the obesity surgeon who performed the procedure on Campati in early January. "This causes a sense of fullness, and the patient is helped to lose weight."
The balloon, which also contains methylene blue to signal any leak, does not alter the shape of the abdomen and is too big to slip down into the digestive tract.
Basso, who has performed the procedure on about 700 patients in six years, said the technique allows an average drop of 33-44 pounds over six months, although the weight loss is often temporary.
"The efficacy of the treatment depends on how the patient is able to use these six months to change his dieting habits in a more or less stable way," Basso said.
Basso hopes the procedure, which he said is less invasive than techniques like gastric bypass or stomach-stapling surgery, will catch on in the United States.
Initial trials with the balloon technique are being conducted in Louisville, Ky., although the procedure has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he said. Basso acknowledged the operation's long-term effects have yet to be determined.
ROME Jan 29, 2006 — Vittorio Campati is a 40-year-old restaurant chef. He weighs 308 pounds, likes pasta and sweets and has failed many diets.
His last resort? A balloon inserted into his stomach in a procedure that lasts less than 20 minutes. European doctors hail the technique as a simple, less invasive way to fight obesity.
"I'm having this balloon inserted in the hope of reducing the quantity of food that I eat," Campati said shortly before being sedated at Rome's Polyclinic Hospital Umberto I.
Being a chef makes that hard.
"I eat a lot of carbohydrates and I did several diets, but all of them failed," he said.
Inserted down the patient's throat, a round silicon balloon is filled with a saline solution and remains in the stomach for about six months, when it is deflated and taken out before the material degrades.
"We introduce a balloon of half a liter volume (about a pint) in the stomach and inflate it so it takes up space and helps slow down the eating," said Dr. Nicola Basso, the obesity surgeon who performed the procedure on Campati in early January. "This causes a sense of fullness, and the patient is helped to lose weight."
The balloon, which also contains methylene blue to signal any leak, does not alter the shape of the abdomen and is too big to slip down into the digestive tract.
Basso, who has performed the procedure on about 700 patients in six years, said the technique allows an average drop of 33-44 pounds over six months, although the weight loss is often temporary.
"The efficacy of the treatment depends on how the patient is able to use these six months to change his dieting habits in a more or less stable way," Basso said.
Basso hopes the procedure, which he said is less invasive than techniques like gastric bypass or stomach-stapling surgery, will catch on in the United States.
Initial trials with the balloon technique are being conducted in Louisville, Ky., although the procedure has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he said. Basso acknowledged the operation's long-term effects have yet to be determined.