Conservative Surgical Treatment of All Gastric Ulcers

Introduction  Current therapy of gastric ulcers of undetermined histology most commonly consists of a specified period of intensive medical management followed by reevaluation. If the lesion has failed to heal, surgical intervention is undertaken.^1-5 When surgery is undertaken, it usually takes the form of "a radical, cancer-type" operation. The adoption of radical ablative^6-10 surgery for a lesion of unproved malignancy and probable benignancy is an exception to usual surgical principles as applied to other organ systems. It has been based upon several apparently valid factors: (1) the known incidence of malignancy in ulcerative lesions of the stomach; (2) the difficulty in distinguishing benign from malignant ulcers in many cases; (3) the poor outlook in patients with frank gastric cancer, and (4) the concept that radical resection not only offers the only real hope in the malignant ulcer but is rational treatment for the benign lesion as well.It