Proximal gastric vagotomy in emergency peptic ulcer perforation

In order to evaluate proximal gastric vagotomy (PGV) performed under different clinical conditions, we compared the late results of 93 patients who underwent emergency PGV for perforated duodenal ulcers with those of 60 patients who had elective PGV. The emergency group of patients were slightly younger and there was a higher male predominance but they were otherwise comparable with those in the elective group. There were no operative deaths and the postoperative morbidity rate was low in both groups. Three patients had a recurrence in the emergency group, and seven occurred in those in the elective group during the first three postoperative years. The cumulative recurrence-free rate of the emergency group was not lower than that of the elective group. The performance of the individual surgeon exerted a strong influence on the incidence of recurrent ulceration. In properly selected patients, whether the surgeons perform PGV in emergency or elective situations appears to have little influence on the outcome.