Comparison of four minimally invasive methods of laparoscopic vagotomy in a porcine model.
BACKGROUND
An experimental study in a porcine model was undertaken to evaluate the currently available techniques of laparoscopic vagotomy.


METHODS
Four groups of pigs were studied. Under general anesthesia, the animals were submitted to either bilateral vagotomy, bilateral highly selective vagotomy, posterior truncal vagotomy with anterior highly selective vagotomy, or Taylor's procedure. Gastric acid secretion and intestinal motility were evaluated before and after the surgical procedure. The feasibility of the four different techniques was assessed by means of a personal difficulty score.


RESULTS
All four procedures produced significant acid secretory reduction. Multivariate analysis showed that the factor most affecting the outcome was the difficulty score.


CONCLUSIONS
Taylor's procedure was the easiest and safest technique. It also produced the best functional results for secretion and motility.
Lepre
L
L
First Department of Surgery, University of Roma "La Sapienza," Viale del Policlinico 155, Roma 00161, Italy.
Costa
G
G
Liotta
G
G
Mazzoni
G
G
Tocchi
A
A
D000818:Animals; D005744:Gastric Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D005769:Gastrointestinal Motility; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D013552:Swine; D014628:Vagotomy / Q000379:methods*; D014629:Vagotomy, Proximal Gastric / Q000379:methods; D015167:Vagotomy, Truncal / Q000379:methods