PhD defence L.H. (Kristel) Wijngaarden

In this thesis, the clinical and immunological effects of a laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) of patients with morbid obesity were studied. The LRYGB leads to an improvement of cardiac function in patients without cardiac history. Patients who regain weight or who obtain insufficient weight loss after LRYGB due to a large gastric pouch can undergo a reoperatie, by which both the gastric pouch and the gastrojejunostomy are being revised. There are two techniques to perform this revisional surgery, and both techniques lead to a comparable additional weight loss and improvement of obesity-related comorbidities. Patients with morbid obesity have an increased absolute number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, B cells, NK cells and monocytes as compared to lean controls. The phenotypic differentiation caused by morbid obesity is limited to CD8+ T cells. This differentiated profile is not reversed to the profile of lean controles at three months after bariatric surgery.

The public defence will take place at the Senate Hall, 1st floor Erasmus Building, location campus Woudestein. The ceremony will begin exactly at 13.00 PM. In light of the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.