Endoluminal Gastroplasty for Obesity Treatment: Emerging Technology and Obstacles

Abstract

Obesity is a complex metabolic disease. Currently, obesity treatment includes lifestyle modification, obesity drug treatment, and bariatric surgery. Lifestyle modification is an essential part of obesity treatment, but it is limited by itself. And anti-obesity treatment drugs also showed limited weight loss effect, about 3-9% per year, and can cause serious side effects such as cardiovascular side events. Surgical treatment requires high cost, permanent resection of the gastrointestinal tract and can cause complication related to surgery. Recently, several promising endoscopic bariatric therapies are emerging. Endoluminal bariatric treatment using flexible gastrointestinal endoscopy could offer a minimally invasive treatment aimed at achieving an effect comparable to obesity surgery, while offering advantages of low cost and safety. In this paper, we described a new technological method, recent clinical data, and the latest findings on obstacles to be overcome for endoscopic gastroplasty using endoscopic suture instruments. Endoscopic gastroplasty presented reduced gastric volume, effective weight loss and maintenance effect without severe adverse events. It could suggest an attractive treatment option for obesity.