The changing pattern in peptic ulcer surgery.

The authors analyse the methods of treatment for the peptic ulcer disease (PUD) in two 5-year periods (group A 1979-1983, group B 1985-1989). From these groups patients with perforated gastroduodenal ulcer were excluded. In the first period 206 operations were carried out using nearly exclusively classical partial gastrectomies of both types (94 per cent). The second period involves 94 operations, where the most frequent type of operations was the proximal gastric vagotomy (40.4 per cent), and vagotomy with anthrectomy in the Roux-en-Y modification (26.6 per cent). The number of operations for a complicated PUD has increased from 43.2 per cent to 53.2 per cent, the ratio between the duodenal and gastric ulcer has changed from 3:1 to 2:1. The mortality was 5.3 and 4.7 per cent respectively, the morbidity 14.5 and 13.8 per cent respectively. The authors confirmed their accordance with the world-wide trend of diminution of the proportion of surgically treated PUD and a shift in the pattern of surgical methods towards the non-resective and more physiological procedures.