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 after 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, 1,132 of them (15%) followed some procedure related to obesity in the cohort follow-up period. The five most common events among cohort patients were post-surgery abdominal dermolipectomy (22%), laparoscopic cholecystectomy (22%), treatment of other digestive tract diseases (18%), cholecystectomy (17%) and other procedures with sequential surgeries (9%). The Public Health System reimbursed an average amount of R$1,182.58 for these hospitalizations, which took an average of 2.6 days of stay and took place approximately 25 months after bariatric surgery.

CONCLUSIONS: It was observed that the obesity condition may lead to other complications, mainly endocrine, intestinal and cardiovascular diseases, in addition to those resulting from the bariatric surgery itself, generating an impact on the system. It is important to notice that these events 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.