Prospective evaluation of simple suture in the surgical treatment of perforated peptic ulcer

In a prospective study aimed at evaluating a safe treatment for perforated peptic ulcer in tropical African conditions 205 patients who presented with perforation of a peptic ulcer in South-Eastern Nigeria during the ten year period January 1973 to December 1982 were treated by simple suture. The ulcers were classified at operation from appearance and feel as acute in 155 patients (75.6%), and chronic in the remaining 50 patients (24.4%). Of this number 21 patients (10.2%) died post-operatively. All 21 patients had chronic pyloroduodenal ulcers which were complicated by haemorrhagic in 10 patients (5.0%) and extensive scarring of the duodenum and pyloric stenosis in 9 patients (4.4%). By way of contrast, no patient with acute pyloroduodenal ulcer died and none was known to suffer from recurrent dyspepsia at 6 months to 1 year follow-up. These results clearly show that simple suture is adequate and safe treatment for perforated acute pyloroduodenal ulcer; however, this form of treatment carries an unacceptably high mortality in those patients with perforated chronic pyloroduodenal ulcers. These patients should, where feasible, be treated by definitive ulcer - curative surgery.