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The Effectiveness and Safety of Barbed Sutures in the Bariatric Surgery: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

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Abstract

Background

Knotless barbed sutures can eliminate knot tying during the bariatric surgery (BS). Since effects reported on patients and surgeons are ambiguous, this study is determined to identify the effectiveness and safety of knotless barbed suture in BS.

Methods

PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Register of Clinical Studies, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies comparing barbed sutures with conventional sutures in BS (until July 2, 2018). Quality assessment was conducted due to Cochrane’s recommendations. Review Manager was applied to analyze the data, and we performed subgroup analyses based on study design type and surgery type.

Results

A total of four cohort studies (25,505 patients, low to moderate risk of bias) and four RCTs (1480 patients, low to moderate risk of bias) proved eligible. BS includes laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Comparing to conventional suture, pooling data showed that suture time (MD = − 4.87, 95%CI − 8.82 to − 0.92, P = 0.02) and operative time (MD = − 7.88, 95%CI − 14.10 to − 1.67, P = 0.01) declined significantly in the barbed group. Although no significant change was in the overall postoperative complications and hospital stay, subgroup analysis of RCTs suggested that significantly, fewer bleeding conditions happened in barbed groups.

Conclusions

Although quality of all the studies was relatively moderate and the number of the included studies was limited, the barbed suture may have the potentiality to be an effective and reliable technique and extend the application in other bariatric surgeries. More evidence with randomized design, larger sample sizes, and longer follow-up need to compel validations of this state-of-the-art in the future.

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Funding

This study is supported by Grant No. 81403276 and No. 81873197 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Grant No. JH20140066 from the Technology Support Program of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Urology Department, Institute of Urology, Laboratory of Reconstructive Urology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Yifei Lin & Jin Huang

  2. Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Youlin Long, Qiong Guo, Jin Huang & Liang Du

  3. West China School of Medicine, Sichuan University, Guoxuexiang 37, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, China

    Sike Lai

  4. West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Guoxuexiang 37, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan, China

    Yonggang Zhang & Jin Huang

  5. West China Medical Publishers, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Du

Authors
  1. Yifei Lin
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  2. Youlin Long
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  3. Sike Lai
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  4. Yonggang Zhang
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  6. Jin Huang
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  7. Liang Du
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Contributions

Y Lin: project development, data analysis and management, manuscript writing, and editing

Y Long, S Lai, and Q Guo: data collection

L Du and Y Zhang: data analysis and management, manuscript writing, and editing

J Huang: data analysis and project development

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jin Huang or Liang Du.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Appendix Figure 1

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of suture time based on study design types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 2

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of operative time based on study design types (PNG 18 kb)

Appendix Figure 3

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of hospital stay based on study design types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 4

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of postoperative complications based on study design types (PNG 18 kb)

Appendix Figure 5

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of bleeding based on study design types (PNG 16 kb)

Appendix Figure 6

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of stenosis based on study design types (PNG 16 kb)

Appendix Figure 7

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of leak based on study design types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 8

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of suture time based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 16 kb)

Appendix Figure 9

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of operative time based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 10

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of hospital stay based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 11

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of postoperative complications based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 17 kb)

Appendix Figure 12

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of bleeding based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 16 kb)

Appendix Figure 13

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of stenosis based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 16 kb)

Appendix Figure 14

A forest plot of subgroup analysis of leak based on bariatric surgery types (PNG 17 kb)

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Lin, Y., Long, Y., Lai, S. et al. The Effectiveness and Safety of Barbed Sutures in the Bariatric Surgery: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. OBES SURG 29, 1756–1764 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-019-03744-4

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