Talma operation for cirrhosis of the liver : with report of cases / by Edgar A. Vander Veer.

  • Vander Veer, Edgar A., 1873-1953.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Talma operation for cirrhosis of the liver : with report of cases / by Edgar A. Vander Veer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    with a report of all the cases that had been treated up to that time—some 273 in number, of which 91, or 33.3 per cent., were cured of the ascitic complication. And later still. Dr. Maurice Richardson^ presented a paper before the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, in December, 1910, on Omentopexy, which has served greatly to draw the attention of the surgical world to the usefulness and practicabilit}' of the operation. Following out Richardson’s paper, Dr. H. H. Grant,® of Louis- ville, collected from the most prominent operators in this country 144 hitherto unreported operated cases, with the following results: 17, or II per cent., died as result of operation; 17, or ii per cent., are reported as cured after three years; 64, or 44 per cent., are reported improved; 32, or 22 jier cent, are reported ununproved. d’his paper will apjiear in the June issue of the Interstate Medical Journal of St. Louis. Now the literature is becoming filled with reports of successful cases, and it will not be long before the operation of omentopexy, or ejiijioplexy, will have its rightful place in abdominal surgery. As a rule, in the beginning the cases came to the surgeon as a last resort, when every other method of treatment had failed; so that a favorable outcome in the majority of cases was almost an imjiossibility. Hence, the after-results were very discouraging and the ojieration fell into discredit. However, the few favorable cases which were referred to the surgeon, and which were greatly benefited by the operation, served to revive interest in it. Then, again, other fields of abdominal work were much more inviting, because of their more favorable outcome, and so the operation of omentopexy did not receive the attention it deserved. But with the perfecting of the technique of abdominal operations, this operation has come to receive its due share of recognition. Perhaps the strongest and the most valid objection in the minds of the most surgeons has been the fact that ascites is one of the symptoms or results of cirrhosis of the liver, and not the cause. Whatever the objection to that may be, the fact remains that by this operation the ascites can be relieved and the