[Peace-time abdominal gunshot wounds]

From analysis of the results of surgical treatment of gunshot injuries of the abdomen in 55 patients the authors conclude that insufficient experience of surgeons in the treatment of such injuries is the main cause of pyogenic complications (51%). They failed, as a rule, to take into account the extent of the affection and the spread of the devitalized tissues, as a consequence of which unjustified economical and non-radical debridement was performed. Eleven patients (20%) died, seven of them, from peritonitis.