If transverse better for stomach surgery?

A few studies in the department of surgery at the Heidelberg hospital looks for the first time, if the technique of cutting a large belly operation has had an impact on results. Neither doctors nor patients knew what to cut was made. The study of 200 patients, showed that the sensitivity to pain and the healing process has no relation with the technique to open the abdominal cavity. Complications were also, as often, with the exception of wound infection, most often to cross, perhaps by traffic problems. Heidelberg surgeons recommend that the surgeon is an individual, case by case decision on the technique of cutting.

Today, the belly is often the operation in a minimally invasive, using the procedure "surgery keyhole. But for large operations, the belly is still open with a long break. "That this cross or median depends on the surgery with the needs and never of scientific studies, Professor Markus W. Büchler, director of the department of surgery at the hospital in Heidelberg.

This randomized study was conducted in accordance with international criteria of quality final to determine whether the two methods are equivalent, and the surgeon is free to choose a technique, said Dr. Christoph vendor, advisor to the General Division, and visceral surgery transplantation and President Center for the Study of German Society of Surgery in Heidelberg. The study was conducted in June 2009 in the Annals of Surgery, the journal's most important for surgery.

A high level of quality of clinical evaluation of different treatments is "double blind" study. This means that neither the patient nor the doctor or nurse what the patient treatment. The surgeon, the operation does not participate in data collection. While in the operating room, a dressing on patients who are not removed, two days after the operation. Before removing the quantity of drugs, the pain was calculated and patients, the pain using a scale. "Patients have no way of knowing how they were operated on," says Dr. Seiler.

The consumption of drugs, pain and the degree of pain immediately after the transaction was for the two procedures. There was also little difference in long-term complications: The patients were twice a month and one year after the operation. Investigators examine the possible consequences of the transaction, including mortality, respiratory diseases, digestive problems, length of hospitalization, cuts and wounds scar. Statistically, there was no difference between the two groups - that most often an infection of the wound to cross.

Dr. Seiler said: "It's hard to say. It is perhaps less control bleeding or increased risk of hematoma." He added that previous studies have not had a risk higher. Surgeons in Heidelberg therefore conclude that, for a scientific basis that the surgeon, the choice of the technique of cutting.