HOW I DO IT Short-TermOutcomes of Sleeve Gastrectomy forMorbid Obesity: Does Staple Line Reinforcement Matter?

# The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Background Stand-alone laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) has been found to be effective in producing weight loss but few large, one-center LSG series have been reported. Gastric leakage from the staple line is a life-threatening com-plication of LSG, but there is controversy about whether buttressing the staple line with a reinforcement material will reduce leaks.We describe a single-center, 518-patient series of LSG procedures in which a synthetic buttressing material Reinforcement) was used in the most recently treated patients. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all patients who underwent LSG in our unit betwee