Gastric Bypass

Comparing the Benefits and Harms of Three Types of Weight Loss Surgery — The PCORnet® Bariatric Study

Posted on by Jodi Snare

Page last updated November 12, 2025

Study Website: The PCORnet Bariatric Study (PBS)
ClinicalTrials.gov#: NCT02741674
Study Design: Retrospective Observational Study
PCORnet Infrastructure: Common Data Model (CDM), Patient partners or engagement
Principal Investigator: David Arterburn
Institution: Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
PCORnet® Network Partner: Legacy PCORnet Partner
Funder: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI); (Project webpage)
Funding Date: 2015
Study Duration: 2016 – 2018
Participating PCORnet® Clinical Research Networks: GPC, INSIGHT, OneFlorida+, PaTH, PEDSnet, REACHnet, STAR
Therapeutic Area: Metabolic Disorders
Condition: Bariatrics, Body Weight, Diabetes, Gastric Bypass, Obesity
Age Range: up to 79 Years (Child,  Adult,  Older Adult)
Status: Completed

Research Question(s):
We don’t know much about the long-term effectiveness of bariatric interventions. Can we use PCORnet to compare compare weight loss and safety among three popular bariatric procedures?

Primary Publication(s):

Inge TH, Coley RY., Bazzano LA,. et al. Comparative effectiveness of bariatric procedures among adolescents: the PCORnet bariatric study. SOARD, 2018, 14(9):1374-1386. doi.org/10.1016/j.soard.2018.04.002

McTigue KM, Wellman R, Nauman E, et al. PCORnet Bariatric Study Collaborative. Comparing the 5-Year Diabetes Outcomes of Sleeve Gastrectomy and Gastric Bypass: The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORNet) Bariatric Study. JAMA Surg. 2020;155(5):e200087. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2020.0087

Results from PCORnet® Bariatric Study Published in JAMA Surgery

Posted on by Jodi Snare

There were no differences in all-cause mortality between patients who had sleeve gastrectomy or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), but operations, hospitalizations, and other longer-term problems were more often associated with RYGB than sleeve gastrectomy, according to a new JAMA Surgery paper reporting results from the PCORnet® Bariatric Study.

The paper describes how researchers used resources from PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, to build a cohort of over 33,000 patients who underwent one of these two different types of bariatric surgery. Researchers were able to investigate the rates of longer-term problems up to five years after patients had their bariatric surgeries.

In an audio interview, study author Anita Courcoulas, MD, MPH, FACS, said that this research was different from past studies in that, by using PCORnet, researchers were able to leverage real-world clinical data from electronic health records and link that data to insurance claims data and other sources.

This information will help guide patients and their doctors in making important decisions about bariatric surgery as they weigh the rates of potential risks associated with each procedure and the average amount of weight loss produced by each, she noted. Study findings on how much weight patients lost and kept off were published in an earlier paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Courcoulas also discussed the important role that bariatric patients, including co-investigator Neely Williams helped in shaping and guiding the study at every step.