[Gastrointestinal endoscopy in surgical patients (author's transl)].

Gastrointestinal endoscopy with flexible glass fiber instruments is of increasing importance in surgery. Preoperative endoscopic examinations bring good progress in planning the operative procedure, especially concerning proximal selective vagotomy, pancreas surgery and reoperations on the large intestine. By applying postoperative endosocopic controls mucosal alterations can earlier be detected in the area concerned than by radiological methods; this has to be emphasized especially in view of patients operated upon for cancer. Emergency endoscopy in massive gastrointestinal bleeding is one of the outstanding tasks. Under certain circumstances risky abdominal operations can be avoided by therapeutic endoscopy.