[Chronic duodenal ulcer. Treatment by anterior fundus seromyotomy with posterior truncal vagotomy].

Anterior seromyotomy of the gastric lesser curvature with additional posterior truncal vagotomy has recently been proposed by Taylor in the elective surgical treatment of chronic duodenal ulcer disease. We report here a technical variant of this procedure. Our results are similar to those following proximal gastric vagotomy, with no operative mortality, minor functional disorders (100% Visick grade I or II at six months), significant reduction of gastric acidity (88.1% reduction of the basal acid output at 6 months) and no ulcer recurrence in the short-term follow-up. This technique offers several advantages over the operations previously designed. It is easy to perform and not time consuming; moreover, the procedure does not take into account possible variations of the vagus nervi, does not require dissection of the abdominal oesophagus and does not entail the risk of lesser curvature necrosis.