What are the realms of pediatric weight reduction surgery and what is its influence on digestive wellbeing?

The escalating prevalence of paediatric obesity poses profound health challenges, prompting a quest to foster effective weight loss strategies. Surgical interventions have emerged as pivotal tools to do so, with the most common of these being laparoscopic gastrectomy (LSG), Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), and adjustable gastric banding (AGB). This systematic review meticulously examines these surgical modalities alongside their outcomes in the short and long term and also, touches upon plausible alternatives to surgery in the event that surgery is contraindicated. Electronic search was conducted in PubMed, Science Direct and Cochrane Library and we sought out studies that specifically focused on pediatric patients. This yielded 30 sources, which were further shortlisted to 24 that were able to provide useful information suitable for this systematic review. Our findings suggest that there is ongoing debate on which specific surgical intervention prevails and positive and negative outcomes, alike, are associated with them all. We believe that it is agreeable that inspite of its shortcomings, bariatric surgical methods are able to offer enduring solutions and thus optimises health outcomes of pediatric patients, especially those with severe obesity.