The development of "stagnant loop" syndrome following surgery for peptic ulcer disease.

Although gastric resection may cause a variety of functional gastrointestinal disorders, malabsorption is rare. When such a disturbance occurs other complicating factors are mostly involved. Two patients who developed a severe malabsorption after partial gastric resection are presented. They both had the prerequisites for intestinal stasis--one had small bowel diverticula and the other a "blind loop" after previous surgery. Their malabsorption was cured by surgical correction of stasis.