[Prospects for saving vegetative nerves during operations for cancer of the lower rectum]

The aim of the work was to investigate the possibility to isolate and preserve the vegetative nerve of the pelvis in operations for low rectal cancer. In preparation of 17 corpses of people dead from causes not associated with a pathology of pelvic organs, mainly two forms of the structure of the superior hypogastric plexus were isolated--with many branches and with few branches. The pelvic promontory is taken as a reference-point. Frontal resection and extirpation of the rectum were fulfilled in 17 patients with low rectal cancer using the nerve-preserving technique of operation. Saving the vegetative nerves of the pelvis does not result in greater number of postoperative complications and positively influences the genitourinary function of the patients.