[Digestive surgery in France. A national epidemiologic survey (1978-1982)]

An epidemiological survey, carried out from 1978 to 1982 in 460 public and private institutions randomly selected from all parts of France, provided an assessment of the activity performed in digestive surgery. The sample included 37,967 patients, yielding an annual estimation of 700,000 patients operated on in the entire country. Digestive surgery was the first surgical domain (20 p. 100 of the entire surgical activity); 51.5 p. 100 of the patients were males and 53 p. 100 were under 35 yr of age. The annual incidence of these operations was 1.3 per 100 population. The first reason for operation was appendicitis (43 p. 100), followed by hernia (17.2 p. 100), gallbladder and biliary tract (10 p. 100), and anal diseases (7.7 p. 100). Digestive cancers led to 32,000 operations each year, with a majority of colonic cancers (40 p. 100). Except for appendectomy and operations on the gallbladder and biliary tract, most procedures were more frequent in males, especially operations on the stomach and esophagus. Incidences of appendectomy, cholecystectomy, inguinal hernia repair and operations for digestive cancers were assessed by sex and age. Incidence of appendectomy was 3 to 4 times greater than in other countries. Intraoperative and immediate postoperative (less than 24 h) mortality was higher for digestive operations (4.7 p. 1000) than for surgery as a whole (2 p. 1000). It increased with age and was higher in males.