Five hundred operations for peptic ulcer disease at J.G. Strijdom Hospital, 1980-1987

The introduction in the late 1970s of potent and effective anti-ulcer drugs revolutionised the medical treatment of peptic ulcer disease and modified the indications for surgical management. Since, as far as we were aware, there had been no previous detailed evaluation of the pattern of surgery for peptic ulcers in this country during the modern era of ulcer therapy, we decided to look at our experience since 1980.