The gold-standard bariatric surgery is called Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, in which surgeons both shrink the stomach and reroute the digestive tract to bypass a portion of the intestines.
The death rate was 2.1 percent with the open Roux-en-Y and 0.2 percent with the laparoscopic version. (Some patients who underwent the open Roux-en-Y had health factors that put them at greater risk for complications.) There were no deaths associated with laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding.