amount of intestine bypassed

[Guest guest]

Some gentleman mailed me a question about the length of the intestine

that is bypassed in MGB. I no longer have your name or message, but

I have learned that the information I provided was incorrect.

In Dr.R's revised patient manual - it's stated right there in the

text for the diagrams about the procedure...6 feet.

What confused me was the terminology I'd seen during my research on

obesity and surgical procedures. I knew that MGB was distal (got

that directly from Dr.R). But from some other reading, understood

that to mean that 2/3 of the small intestine was bypassed (leaving

about 6-8 feet for absorption).

Because of some recent messages posted here, I began to question my

understanding of the terms. I did more research and quickly learned

that the terms proximal and distal stand for different measures

depending upon the doctor/surgeon.

So, I've gone directly to the source on this and here's Dr.R's

perspective on what these terms mean for the MGB procedure:

* proximal - less than 3 feet

* distal - 3-5 feet

I hope this helps all prospective pre-ops - and that certain someone

I accidently misinformed (sorry).

Kind regards,

Debbie

MGB 7/27/00