Recent Experiences with Acute Perforation of Peptic Ulcers at the Massachusetts General Hospital

Abstract

THIS review of acute gastroduodenal perforations is the third in a series representing the experience at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Richardson,¹ in 1917, reported 103 cases from 1896 to 1915, with an over-all mortality of 44.2 per cent. Ulfelder and Allen,² reviewed the 334 cases from 1916 to 1940. The mortality in that series was 27.2 per cent. This paper covers the 289 perforations seen from 1940 through 1951, in which the mortality dropped to 9.34 per cent.The data presented below are not at variance with those in several recent reports, but it is of particular interest to examine . . .