Surgical treatment of internal hernia after Roux–en-Y gastric bypass — impact of institutional standards and surgical approach

INTRODUCTION: Internal hernia is one of the most frequent long-term complications after laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery (RYGB). Surgical treatment of an internal hernia itself has risks that can largely be avoided by the implementation of institutional standards and a structured approach. MATERIAL AND METHODS: From 2012 until 2022, we extracted all consecutive bariatric cases from the prospectively collected national database (StuDoQ). Data from all patients undergoing internal hernia repair were then collected from our hospital information management system and retrospectively analyzed. We compared patient characteristics and surgical outcome of patients before and after the implementation of standard operating procedures for institutional and perioperative aspects (first vs. second time span). RESULTS: Overall, 37 patients were identified (median age 43 years, 86.5% female). Internal hernia was diagnosed after substantial weight loss (17.2 kg/m(2)) and on average about 34 months after RYGB. Baseline characteristics (age, sex, BMI, achieved total weight loss% and time interval to index surgery were comparable between the two groups). After local standardization, the conversion rate decreased from 52.6 to 5.6% (p = 0.007); duration of surgery from 92 to 39 min (p = 0.003), and length of stay from 7.7 to 2.8 days (p = 0.019). CONCLUSION: In this study, we could demonstrate that the surgical therapy of internal hernia after gastric bypass can be significantly improved by implementing institutional and surgical standards. The details described (including a video) may provide valuable information for non-specialized surgeons to avoid pitfalls and improve surgical outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00423-023-03049-2.