[Vagotomy in surgical gastroenterology: legends and reality]

The work has shown high effectiveness of vagotomy in a number of diseases. In 2565 patients with perforated duodenal ulcer operation of suturing finished with lethal outcome in 9.2% of cases and recurrent disease in 54% of patients. After vagotomy the results were 1.5% and 14% respectively. In 277 patients with massive bleeding due to erosive gastritis lethality after different operations was 39-46%, after vagotomy--10.0%. After 403 vagotomies for decompensated stenosis of the duodenum atony of the stomach developed in 1.2% of patients, recurrent ulcer appeared in 6%, lethality was 1%. Vagotomy proved to be effective for peptic ulcers of the jejunum (106 patients) in 86% of cases, for chronic indurative pancreatitis (86 patients) in 97% of cases, lethality was 1.2%.