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Bariatric surgery has been shown to improve cardiovascular risk factors but long term benefits for survival and cardiovascular events are still uncertain.

We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for parallel group studies that evaluated the clinical outcomes associated with bariatric surgery as compared to non-surgical treatment. Relevant studies were pooled using random effects meta-analysis for risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, cardiovascular events and mortality.

14 studies met the inclusion criteria, which included 29,208 patients who underwent bariatric surgery and 166,200 nonsurgical controls (mean age 48 years, 30% male, follow up period ranged from 2 years to 14.7 years). Four studies were considered at moderate–high risk of bias, whilst ten studies were at moderate or lower risk of bias. Compared to nonsurgical controls there was more than 50% reduction in mortality amongst …