Our most recent and widely celebrated STAMPEDE (Surgical Therapy and Medications Potentially Eradicate Diabetes Efficiently) study has been widely praised for it's investigation into the efficacy of surgical and medical intervention in diabetes treatment. Read more about it below or proceed with reading other resources published by our doctors.

The STAMPEDE study

Cleveland Clinic physicians started a one-year clinical trial (with a four-year follow-up) to discover the effects on diabetic patients of advanced medical therapy versus medical therapy plus one of two types of bariatric surgery on glycemic control in obese patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes.

On March 31, 2014, the three years study results were simultaneously presented at the American College of Cardiology's annual conference in Washington, D.C., and appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study shows bariatric surgery is a highly effective and durable treatment for type 2 diabetes in obese patients, enabling nearly all surgical patients to be free of insulin and many to be free of all diabetic medications three years after surgery. The bariatric surgery patients experienced an improvement in quality of life and a reduction in the need for cardiovascular medications to control blood pressure and cholesterol compared to those receiving medical therapy.

This is the first randomized controlled clinical trial that compares surgery with intensive medical therapy head-to-head for this patient population.

The clinical trial involved 150 men and women with a clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes between the ages of 20 and 60 years old with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27-43.

This is one of the first times doctors have studied a weight loss surgery for diabetes in patients that aren’t severely obese. (Typically, bariatric surgery is performed on patients with a BMI over 35.)

The patients were randomized 1:1:1 and given one of the following treatments:

  • 50 patients treated with Advanced Medical Therapy (AMT – diet, exercise, and medication therapy).
  • 50 patients treated with Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy and AMT.
  • 50 patients treated with Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass and AMT.

STAMPEDE patients’ follow-up visits were scheduled for every three months for the first two years and every six months thereafter. All of the patients have completed at least one full year of post-treatment observation and will continue to be observed for a total of 60 months.