Disability after gastric surgery.

Partial gastrectomy, truncal vagotomy, pyloroplasty, and gastrojejunostomy, singly and in combination, produce clinical disturbances in gastric reservoir function, gastric emptying, gastric mucosal integrity, small intestinal motility, and small intestinal fluids shifts. Ordinarily, these disturbances are of minor clinical importance and respond readily to conservative management. However, postoperative gastric surgical symptoms are, at times, annoying or disabling to the patient. Some of these clinical states are amenable to surgical treatment, and in others, operative intervention is definitely contraindicated. Therefore, it is important to recognize those syndromes which are amenable to an operative procedure. Alkaline gastritis, a syndrome of postcibal pain and diffuse endoscopic gastritis with or without vomiting of bile, is best treated by vagotomy and Roux-en-Y gastrojejunostomy. The afferent loop syndrome of relief of pain by vomiting and the demonstration of a dilated or tortuous afferent loop is likewise best treated by vagotomy and Roux-en-Y gastrojejunostomy or enteroenterostomy. Efferent loop obstruction causing vomiting and gastric distention requires a revision of the gastrojejunostomy. The dumping syndrome is best treated conservatively for at least a year. If this approach fails, loop reversal at the stoma or conversion of a Billroth II to a Billroth I anastomosis is effective. For postvagotomy diarrhea, loop reversal in the distal jejunum gives relief, and for the postvagotomy atonic stomach, a subtotal gastrectomy should be performed after failure of conservative management, although there is not enough experience with this condition to make accurate prognoses. Beware of the patient who does not fit any of these syndromes. A poor result is likely to follow attempts at surgical correction.