[Incidence of postoperative adhesions following use of various methods of coagulation. An animal experiment study].

In 5 groups of 20 rats each, equal areas of the uterus horns and of the corresponding peritoneum of the anterior abdominal wall were coagulated resp. vaporized. To achieve this endocoagulation, mono- and bipolar high frequency current, and CO2- and Neodym-YAG-lasers were used. After 2 resp. 4 weeks, no intraabdominal adhesions were found in two animals after endocoagulation and in one animal each after coagulation with bipolar high frequency current and with CO2-laser. The lowest adhesion rates were seen after endocoagulation and coagulation with bipolar high frequency current. After application of the YAG-laser, to the uterus horns adhesions were present in 100%, applying the YAG-laser to the anterior abdominal wall for a short time there were produced few adhesions. After coagulation resp. vaporization of equal areas of the anterior abdominal wall, significantly more adhesions were found after CO2-laser-application, compared to all other techniques (p less than 0.01). Adhesions to the abdominal wall were significantly less frequent than adhesions to the tubes (p less than 0.01) with all techniques except with the CO2-laser.