[Follow-up of 2300 vaginal and abdominal hysterectomies]

The report deals with the 2330 hysterectomies, performed in the "Women's Hospital of the City of Nuernberg", in 1968 through 1973. One thousand extirpations were done the abdominal way, whereas 1330 were done using the vaginal method. The average age of the patients was 50 years. The distribution of the parity of the abdominal hysterectomies was about equal, whereas the parity of the vaginal operations was 11 times higher, mainly because of technical reasons. The main indications of the vaginal extirpations were: descensus, uterus myomatosus and non invasive cancer; the one of the abdominal extirpations was uterus myomatosus, benign and malign ovarial tumors and cancer of corpus uteri. The total ratio of complications (including abscess of the abdominal wall, seromes etc.) amounts ot 19,1% of the abdominal operations, 9,6% of the vaginal operations. The total mortality of the abdominal operations was nearly 1,7% the one of the vaginal operations approached 0,37%. In 50% respectively 80% the cause of death was an acute emboly of the lungs.