In reply

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to reply to the letter by Drs Oefelein and Okerson concerning our study that was published in Archives.¹ Regrettably, the message of our study apparently did not come across. We did not condemn laparoscopic adjustable band gastroplasty (LAGB). We wanted to stress the importance of a better follow-up policy.

Understandably, the analysis by Oefelein and Okerson is biased by an obvious conflict of interest. This clearly impairs the value of their argument, but it does not excuse the condescending tone of their letter.

First, they state that 鈥渢his was a small single-center retrospective study聽.聽.聽.聽with limited application to the broad population.鈥� In fact, our cohort of patients consisted of unselected and consecutive morbidly obese individuals who, therefore, were quite well representative of the broad population. Our study was conducted at the Saint-Pierre University Hospital, a recognized bariatric center, where hundreds of surgeons from all over the world, including the United States, have benefited from training in LAGB. As mentioned in the text, the very first ever LAGB was performed at this center, as was the first robotic gastroplasty.²