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The effect of intragastric balloon placement on weight loss and type 2 diabetes control: authors' reply

The effect of intragastric balloon placement on weight loss and type 2 diabetes control: authors’ reply SIRS, We read with interest the letter of Chan et al. regarding our review article about the effect of bariatric surgery on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Chan et al. describe the results of a pilot study on the effect of placement of a BioEnterics Intragastric Balloon (BIB; BioEnterics Corporation, Carpinteria, CA, USA) in obese patients for diabetes control. We had not addressed this item in our review. The data presented by Chan et al. are interesting but should be interpreted with caution. The effect of bariatric surgery on type 2 diabetes has been well established. However, no studies have been published on the effect of gastric balloon placement on weight loss and control of type 2 diabetes. A major drawback of the study of Chan et al. relates to the study design: no randomization and no blinding of patients (no sham procedure). Only two sham-controlled studies on the effect of the BIB balloon on weight loss have been published with 32 and 43 patients, respectively. 4 Only in the first study, a significant effect on weight loss in the intervention group was observed (after 3 months). The second study by Mathus-Vliegen et al. revealed no significant REFERENCES