Clinical Study on Metabolic Surgery Compared to the Best Clinical Treatment in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This is a prospective, open, randomized study involving 100 patients with microvascular complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity, who will undergo gastric bypass (Roux-en-Y gastric bypass ARM A) or receive best medical treatment (ARM B, control arm). The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in the control of diabetic nephropathy in diabetic patients with BMI between 30 and 35 kg/m2. The medical community is confronted with many different studies using various methodologies to investigate the best pharmacological treatment for type 2 diabetes mellitus. The treatment algorithm offers several different options according to the stage of the disease (which is different in each study). In addition, new drugs are being developed over the years, but are not always a guarantee of effective type 2 diabetes mellitus control \[MENDES, 2010\]. Furthermore, these drugs do not prevent the development of this disease, consequently increasing the risks of microvascular and macrovascular complications. Conversely, there is considerable evidence that surgery can be an adequate tool to promote type 2 diabetes mellitus remission in patients who are unresponsive to clinical treatment. Gastric bypass surgery is one of the most popular bariatric surgeries in the world, but its effects on microvascular and macrovascular complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus have not been established. Specialists suggest that the rapid and uncontrollable decrease in blood glucose adds to the concern that the surgery may paradoxically cause exacerbation of microvascular complications \[LEOW, 2005\], whereas gradual improvement in blood glucose before gastric bypass surgery may prevent this paradoxical worsening, leading to an interruption of this process, or even retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy remission. However, there are no studies comparing the results of these two types of treatment (clinical vs. surgical) in a similar population and assessing the development of microvascular complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Therefore, in order to clarify such doubts, it is necessary and extremely desirable to conduct a randomized controlled trial comparing gastric bypass with the best and most modern clinical treatment. Its findings could have a direct impact on hundreds of millions of diabetics by allowing the inclusion of surgical treatment as a safe and feasible therapeutic option for a significant portion of these patients.