What Is Transoral Gastroplasty or the Toga Procedure?

Among the latest and effective means of addressing obesity is the Toga Procedure or Transoral Gastroplasty. In this procedure, surgery is carried endoscopially; that is without making any cut or incision in the skin.

Natural openings such as mouth are used to insert the endoscope by way of the throat, to put stomach staples in place.

TOGA-weight-loss

The main benefits of the endoscopic TOGA procedure is that it is minimally invasive and requires no actual surgery, making it less risky, with the person being less likely to suffer complications, infections and so on.

The recovery time may also be less and the pain that a person has to undergo in the case of a regular incision surgery may also be minimized in this procedure.

However statistics about this procedure show that the individuals who prefer this procedure, may lose marginally less weight than those who get a gastric bypass surgery performed.

The procedure is performed under general anesthesia and placed on a respirator to regular breathing. The procedure could take up to 2 hours to complete. A lot of flexible instruments including an endoscopic camera are inserted into the stomach and used to perform the procedure.

First carbon dioxide is pumped into the stomach to distend or inflate it; to facilitate the surgeon’s working in there.

Staples are also inserted into the stomach and a pouch is created to reduce the actual size of the stomach.

The TOGA procedure is different from regular gastric bypass surgery, wherein incisions are made into the stomach wall to insert and put the stomach staples in place.

Both have the same result of bifurcating the stomach or decreasing its size, due to which, when the person eats, they become sated and feel fuller much sooner, very significantly reducing their caloric intake, which is what leads to weight loss.

Clearly there are lot of plus points in respect of this procedure and many would be interested to opt for it. However this is a procedure that still does not have FDA approval and is available only by way of clinical trials for those who have a BMI between 35 and 55.

They should be between 18 and 60 years of age and should have been obese for more than two and a half years, with their weight being stable for the past year or so. Preexisting conditions such as cancer, inflammatory disease and digestive tract ailments may also impact a person’s eligibility.