Expert: John Pilcher, MD - 10/6/2008

Question
Hi. I was due to have the lap band surgery this morning and my doctor called and said he would have to cancel due to my very low hemocrit levels. He mentioned anemia, and I have always been anemic my entire life with no problems and had many surgeries. My surgeon also wants to do a pet scan in coordination with my doctor who does endoscopies. What could the pet scan show?  I am a 5 year breast cancer survivor and had chemo, could the chemo have caused such a low hemocrit level? I have no idea why he couldn't have still done the surgery today. Could you give me your ideas on this?

Answer
Tami,
I understand that you must be tremendously disappointed.  There are 3 reasons I can think of to postpone a Band procedure because of anemia:

1)  the blood count may be so low that your body is not strong enough to recover reliably from surgery

2)  the low blood count might be an indicator of a medical problem that needs to get cleared up before the Band operation (this may be true even though you have been anemic for a long time already)

3)  most patients who have weight loss surgery have some drop in their Iron levels and so also a drop in their blood count.  Usually it is necessary to make sure a person is starting off at a good level so they can handle that drop.

In my experience, after these things have been cleared up it is OK to go ahead with Band surgery.

Best of luck!

Dr JP