[Surgical treatment of stomach and duodenal ulcer]

Despite lots of innovation in conservative treatment, surgery has established in ulcer therapy. Elective surgery shows a very low mortality rate whereas that of emergency operations is approximately ten times that high. If one intends to improve the currently insufficient results of ulcer treatment, this is only possible by decreasing the number of emergency operations which for many years remains on a nearly unchanged level, in favour of elective surgery. This especially is true for patients on high risk regarding an ulcer complication. Most important complications are recurrent phases within short time and poor compliance. A further complication is any critical factor in general which leads to the assumption that an appearing ulcer complication may most likely not be survived. Critical factors mainly are advanced age and attendant cases of illness. It may be expected that the still high mortality of this benign disease can be considerably reduced by applying the formula "more elective--less emergency surgery".