[Surgery of complicated gastroduodenal ulcers: outcome at the millennium]

Complications of gastroduodenal ulcers such as bleeding and perforation have been afflicted with a mortality of up to 40 % in the past. Altered ulcer manifestation by improvement of medical treatment as well as advances in surgical techniques and intensive care medicine might currently have improved the outcome of these severely ill patients.

A retrospective analysis of 73 patients with emergency operation for bleeding or perforated gastric (n = 50) and duodenal ulcer (n = 23) between 10/1994 and 7/2001 was performed.

The median age was 58 years (17-90 years) with 30 % of patients exceeding the age of 70 years. Eighty-one percent of patients had perforation, 19 % had bleeding. Factors predisposing for gastroduodenal ulcers were present in 88 %. Five percent of gastric perforations were due to gastric malignancies. Diagnosis of perforation was made in 88 % by conventional X-rays, in 12 % of perforations no free abdominal gas was detectable. A local surgical procedure (excision of ulcer and sutures/pyloroplasty) was performed in 64/73 patients (88 %), partial gastroduodenal resection was necessary in 9 patients (12 %). Histologic examination for helicobacter pylori was positive in 30/39 specimens (77 %). In-hospital mortality was 14 %, both for patients with bleeding and perforated ulcers. Surgical complications were 12 %.

Altered ulcer manifestation, minimized surgical therapy and improved intensive care medicine led to a recent reduction in postoperative mortality of patients suffering from perforated or bleeding gastroduodenal ulcer. A further reduction of this still high mortality might be expected by improvement of surgical training and/or restriction of therapy to a limited number of surgeons.