Alexis Shapiro's liver was to large and doctors were forced to operate using sleeve gastrectomy. This will hopefully help 200-pound 12-year-old to lose weight. The Texas teen has a rare hypothalamic obesity that results for her to gain weight and makes her hungry every time.
Surgeons at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio could not go through with 12-year-old Alexis Shapiro’s planned gastric bypass surgery Friday morning because her liver was larger than anticipated.
The team instead performed a sleeve gastrectomy, which reduces the stomach to about a quarter of its original size.
The procedure should still help Alexis lose weight, and this will help with her enlarged liver, too, according to the hospital’s Twitter account.
“Ultimately, I don't think this will change her prognosis,” Dr. Thomas Inge said during a press conference.
Alexis, who is 4-foot-7 and weighs about 200 pounds, suffers from hypothalamic obesity, which has caused her to gain an average of two pounds a week and constantly feel hungry.
She developed the rare condition after she had a benign brain tumor called a craniopharyngioma removed two and a half years ago. The surgery resulted in damage to her hypothalamus and pituitary gland.
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