(NEWSnet/AP) — Patients who take drugs such Ozempic or Wegovy for weight-loss may face life-threatening complications if they have surgery or other procedures that require an empty stomach for anesthesia.

Some anesthesiologists in the U.S. and Canada say they encountered a growing number of patients using the weight-loss drugs who inhaled food and liquid into their lungs while sedated, because their stomachs were still full — even after following standard instructions to stop eating for at least six in advance.

The medication can slow digestion so severely that it puts patients at increased risk for pulmonary aspiration, which can cause dangerous lung damage, infection and possibly death, said Dr. Ion Hobai, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“This is such a serious sort of potential complication that everybody who takes this drug should know about it,” said Hobai, who was among the first to flag the issue.

Nearly 6 million prescriptions for the class of drugs that include Wegovy and Ozempic were written January-May in the U.S. for people who don't have diabetes, according to Komodo Health, a health care technology company. The drugs induce weight loss by mimicking the action of hormones, found primarily in the gut, that kick in after people eat. They also target signals between the digestive system and brain that control appetite and satiety, and by slowing the rate at which the stomach empties.

In June, American Society of Anesthesiologists advised patients to skip weight-loss medication on the day of surgery and stop weekly injections for a week prior to any sedation procedure. Dr. Michael Champeau, the group’s president, said the action was based on anecdotal reports of problems, including aspiration.

In Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, Hobai and a group of colleagues called for the drug to be stopped for even lengthier period, about three weeks before sedation. That accounts for how long semaglutide, the active medication in Wegovy, remains in the body, said Dr. Philip Jones, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist and deputy editor-in-chief of the journal.

Aspiration occurs in one of every 2,000 to 3,000 operations that require sedation, and almost half of patients who aspirate during surgery develop a related lung injury. But case reports show recent patients on semaglutide had problems even when they stopped food as long as 20 hours before their procedure.

American Society of Anesthesiologists advises doctors who are in doubt to treat patients who haven't paused the drug as if they have a full stomach. 

Stopping such medication for three weeks can cause problems, too. Patients with diabetes will need another way to control their blood sugar and those seeking to lose weight may regain some, Hobai said.

Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, Wegovy and similar drugs, said the firm’s clinical trial and post-marketing safety data did not show that the medication leads to aspiration. But the drugmaker noted the drugs are known to cause delayed emptying of the stomach and that labels warn of gastrointestinal side effects.

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