[Indications for vaginal hysterectomy]

The surgical technique recommended for vaginal extirpation of the uterus from patients with corpus carcinoma differs from methods suggested for any other indications, including inadequately controllable metrorrhagia, uterus myomatosus, in situ carcinoma, Stage Ia carcinoma of the cervix, and positional abnormality. Reported are 1,052 cases of hysterectomy for which these indications had been valid. More than 25 per cent of the patients concerned had been above 60 years of age. There had been complications of two types, intra-operative and postoperative. Infections of the urinary tract ranked on top of the list and accounted for 5.6 per cent of all complications. They were followed by intra-operative bleeding in 2.6 per cent of the cases and postoperative bleeding in 1.6 per cent. There were also two cases of ileus, one of them fatal. Another death occurred due to cardiac insufficiency.