Word: stomach
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...years, he was never fully satisfied with the results. Too many patients had such severe and persistent discomfort that though they kept on taking antacids freely, they still did not get enough relief. They were forced to eat little and often. But while treating patients for bleeding stomach ulcers. Surgeon Wangensteen and his research team got an idea. Chilling the stomach checked both the flow of digestive juices and bleeding. Why not deepen the chilling to the freezing stage, knock out the stomach's acid factory more completely, and give the patient relief for months or years? The technique...
Rock-Hard. After tests on 150 dogs, the Minneapolis doctors were ready to try the technique in man. Now, one of Dr. Wangensteen's ulcer patients, who has had no food for 15 hours to make sure that his stomach is empty, sits in a chair and gets a local anesthetic sprayed into his throat. He then feels little discomfort as the surgeon shoves a rubber balloon down his throat, through his gullet and into his stomach. Cold absolute alcohol drips into the balloon through attached tubing until the patient feels his stomach distended, as though after a heavy...
...tubing-which is actually one tube inside another-permits the frigid liquid (-4°F.) to be pumped in and out, constantly recooled and recirculated, until the stomach is frozen to rocklike hardness. But most patients, though fully conscious, feel no discomfort. "Strangely,'' a Wangensteen team member told the American Surgical Association last week, "no patient has complained of the cold tube in his mouth or throat. Nor has any evidence of frostbite of the tongue been observed...
...proffered alternative of freezing, and are happy they did. Though their output of gastric juices has been drastically reduced, they suffer no indigestion. And all their ulcers healed within two to six weeks. The freezing achieves its effect not only by knocking out the fluid-producing cells in the stomach wall, but also by killing the network of vagal nerve endings that carry messages of hunger to the stomach. So, the Minneapolis team believes, freezing should rule out the need for most vagotomies (nerve-cutting operations), which have been done for the same purpose as gastrectomies and often combined with...
...stomach regains too much of its acid-producing power, as it may in a few months, patients may have their stomachs quick-frozen again. And. insists Dr. Wangensteen. most of them could walk in off the street, get the treatment as outpatients, and go back to work...