• Rodolpho Alberto Bussolaro, Elvio Bueno Garcia, Maria Teresa Zanella, and Lydia Masako Ferreira.
• Plastic Surgery Post-Graduation Program, Universidade Federal de São Paulo-Escola Paulista de Medicina, Rua Napoleão de Barros, 715, 4° andar, Vila Clementino, CEP (postal code): 04023-002, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. rodolphoab@uol.com.br
• Obes Surg. 2012 Mar 1;22(3):353-9.

BackgroundBariatric surgery reduces body weight, but creates the need for surgical correction of the patient's body shape, especially of the abdomen. The abdominal skin of the ex-obese has a lower quantity of fibrous and non-fibrous components; however, its functional status has not yet been studied. This study quantified, at different depths, the neurological function of the abdominal skin of the obese and morbidly ex-obese.MethodsSemmes-Weinstein monofilaments were used to quantify sensory levels of abdominal skin at the supra-umbilical (SU), umbilical (U), and infra-umbilical (IU) levels in 25 currently morbidly obese, 56 post-bariatric patients (open Roux-en-Y gastric bypass), and 43 women with normal body weight and/or overweight without previous obesity (control).ResultsOnly the control group showed a positive correlation between a worsening of sensory perception and age (p = 0.02). In the morbid obesity group, sensory threshold was higher at the IU level (9.60 g/mm(2)) than at the U (5.86 g/mm(2)) and SU (5.38 g/mm(2)) levels (p < 0.05). The mean sensory threshold for morbid obesity subjects (6.95 g/mm(2)) was higher than that of the post-bariatric patients (4.44 g/mm(2)), which in turn was higher than that of the control group (3.47 g/mm(2)), p < 0.01.ConclusionsMorbidly obese and post-bariatric patients have lost the normal positive correlation between age and skin sensitiveness. The IU region has sensitiveness compromised in morbid obesity. Sensory thresholds in post-bariatric patients showed improvement relative to morbidly obese, but remained worse than the control subjects.

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