[Are laparoscopic operations on stomach useful?]

The purpose of this review is to assess the position of laparoscopic gastric surgery. Only for perforated gastric and duodenal ulcers a prospective randomized study is available without revealing meaningful differences between conventional and laparoscopic procedure. The elective laparoscopic Selective Proximal Vagotomy (SPV) of stomach and duodenal ulcers was reported on some 200 patients till now. The perioperative risk was lower than that of the conventional method. Due to only short follow-up statements on the risk of ulcer recurrence and therefore completion of vagotomy can not be made. Because of operative technical difficulties some examinators have modified the Selective Proximal Vagotomy, but long-term results with these techniques and the conventional method do not exist. Till now a laparoscopic resection of the stomach was done in less than 100 patients. At comparable risk of both methods representative conclusions could not be made. Similar small are the experiences with laparoscopic resection of the stomach or gastrectomy for gastric carcinoma. The results suppose that a systematic lymph node dissection of the compartment II is only restrictevly possible. The operative risk is nearly that of the conventional method. Laparoscopic staging is a favourable indication in gastric surgery with the aim to detect peritoneal metastases and to spare the patient an exploratory laparotomy. Furthermore, laparoscopy offers advantages in palliative procedures, without existence of extensive proof. Nowadays it is applied for extreme obesity and "Gastric Banding", a method with low perioperative risk. Whether the long-term results are equivalent to those of conventional stomach bypass operations is not proved so far. Alltogether the advantages of laparoscopy in comparison to conventional gastric surgery are only obvious in a few clinical situations. Qualified randomized prospective studies are necessary to evaluate the new operation techniques.