BioEnterics Intragastric Balloon: Clinical outcomes of the first 100 patients - A Turkish experience

Background The BioEnterics Intragrastric Balloon (BIB (R)) together with restricted diet has been used for the treatment of obesity and morbid obesity. Methods A prospective study was conducted on 100 patients who had undergone the BIB procedure between February 2005 and February 2007. Results Mean age, mean weight, and mean BMI of the patients were 35.35 +/- 9.25 years, 113.23 +/- 24.76 kg (range 73-200 kg), and 39.28 +/- 6.98 kg/m(2) (range 30-69.2 kg/m(2)), respectively. Six months after the BIB procedure, mean weight and mean BMI were reduced to 100.46 +/- 26.05 kg (range 58-178 kg) and 34.70 +/- 11 kg/m(2) (range 21.83 +/- 61.59 kg/m(2)), respectively. There was a statistically significant reduction in weight and BMI at 6 months after the BIB procedure (p < 0.01). Excess weight loss (EWL) at 6 months ranged between 0 and 28 kg, with a mean value of 12.68 +/- 7.70 kg. The subjects had 0 to 99.2% %EWL (mean 28.63 +/- 19.29). Reduction in BMI at 6 months ranged between 0 and 12.3 kg/m(2), with a mean value of 4.51 +/- 2.85 kg/m(2), and percent excess body mass index loss (%EBMIL) was 38.20 +/- 28.78% (range 0-158%). At 6 months, there was a significant reduction in body weight and BMI (p < 0.01) in both groups. The reduction in BMI of the morbidly obese group was significantly greater than that of the obese group (p = 0.035), and both the %EWL and %EBMIL of the morbidly obese patients were significantly lower than those of the obese patients at 6 months (p = 0.001). Conclusions BIB application is a reasonable weight loss method with few complications.