OBJECTIVES: Obesity is a clearly under-researched chronic disease in Brazil, despite its increasing prevalence. There’s a considerable increasing growth of obesity in the country and it’s important to characterize obesity as a disease and to report the cost burden associated to it. This study aims to assess the impact demand and costs related to severe obesity identified from the bariatric surgery procedure in The Brazilian Public Healthcare System.

METHODS: A retrospective cohort analysis was performed using services provided by Brazilian public healthcare database (DATASUS). The defined population consisted of patients identified by obesity ICD-10 (E66) who underwent bariatric surgery, between April 2015 and March 2016. The selected time period allowed the analysis of a 60 months follow-up period prior the surgical procedure were all in-patient events related to obesity were accounted for.

RESULTS: In the period between April 2015 and March 2016, 7.563 patients had bariatric surgery, and 428 of these (6%) performed some procedure related to obesity in the follow-up period. The five most common obesity-related events among cohort patients were cholecystectomy (22%), laparoscopic cholecystectomy (16%), treatment of diabetes mellitus (15%), treatment of hypertensive crisis (12%), and treatment of heart failure (11%). The Public Health System reimbursed the average amount of R$ 710.90 for these hospitalizations, which had an average stay of 5 days and took place approximately 27 months before the bariatric procedures.

CONCLUSIONS: It was possible to observe that obesity condition may lead to other complications, mainly endocrine, intestinal and cardiovascular diseases, generating an impact on the system. It is important to notice that these events as well as the bariatric surgery itself may be avoided if more treatment options for obesity were available in SUS such as pharmacological treatments, in addition to the lifestyle changes which is the only recommended current treatment.