Lapband®

The Lap-Band® system was introduced into the clinical management of the obese patient eleven years ago, and has now been placed in more than 160,000 patients. The original concept of an adjustable gastric band was developed by Drs G Szinicz and G Schnapka at Innsbruck , Austria in 1921. They placed a silastic band around the upper stomach of the rabbit. There was an inner balloon which was adjusted by the injection of saline into a subcutaneous port. This original concept was taken to clinical application by Dr Lubomyr Kusmak of New Jersey , USA in 1962 and was modified for laparoscopic placement to become the Lap-Band by Dr Mitiku Belachew of Huy , Belgium and Mr Vernon Vincent of BioEnterics Corporation in Carpinteria , California in the early 1990s. The Lap-Band is now available broadly across most of the world and has rapidly become the predominant surgical method for achieving weight loss in most of the countries that provide surgical treatment of obesity.