The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Case Report

Multiple Postoperative Complication after Total Gastrectomy in Elderly Patient

Hyun Ah Kim, Ho Seong Han, Young Woo Kim, Eu Gene Kim, Nam Jun Yi, Seong Hoon Park*

Copyright ⓒ 2001. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Mar 31, 2001

Abstract

The number of the aged patient who undergo the operation has been increased in recent years. The risk of the operation is formidable in old patient. After general surgery, the morbidity and the mortality are associated with the pre-operative medical illness. And, the old age have more pre-operative medical illnesses than the younger. We experienced multiple postoperative complications in 85 years old patient. He has past history of old myocardiac infarction without other disease. He underwent the total gastrectomy with esophagojejunostomy due to advanced gastric cancer. After surgery, multiple post operative complications have occurred such as arrhythmia, hyponatremia, intraperitoneal abscess, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, pneumonia, heart failure, post operative delirium, phlebitis, hearing disturbance, nephropathy, would seroma, liver dysfunction, glucose intolerance. We summarized this case and give a brief review of the literature.

Keywords: Postoperative complication; Gastrectomy; Old age