[Vagotomy and vagotomy follow-up--results of a survey]

A survey of 1006 surgical clinics in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1984 showed that the general surgical procedure for duodenal ulcers was vagotomy in 65.9%. 21.9% of the clinics checked the effectiveness of vagotomy intraoperatively by either performing electrostimulation (69.6%), leucomethylene-blue staining (20.9%), monitoring of the intragastric pH-value (7.3%), or Congo-red test (1.4%). Postoperative vagotomy controls were performed in 51% of the hospitals. Judging by the present results, application of intraoperative effectiveness control is not necessarily advisable. Evaluating the pre- and postoperative acid production allows the establishment of a quality control, however without any prognostic relevance.