The Role of Surgery in Peptic Ulcer

Abstract

Peptic ulcer is a psychosomatic disease, and there must be a distinct and definite indication for surgical treatment. Many patients need reorganization of their lives rather than of their stomachs. If a patient cannot talk himself out of it with the help of a psychiatrist, or eat his way out of it by diet, then the surgeon is called in. Whether the operative procedure should be a subdiaphragmatic vagotomy with a supplemental drainage operation, or an 80 per cent gastric resection, is still controversial, with the tendency away from vagotomy and toward resection.