[Treatment with immunoglobulins in poor risk patients. A contribution to early re-laparotomy (author's transl)].

In a first period of two years the total number of patients with re-laparotomy was 1.7 per cent (41/2412). The death rate in these cases was 48.8 per cent. In a second period of nine months we found a re-laparotomy rate of 0.69 per cent (7/1022). The death rate of these seven cases with re-laparotomy amounted to 14.3 per cent. All together in the second period the number of re-laparotomies decreased evidently and the postoperative course was less complicated. The experience with the patients who died in the first period was a reason to classify the cases in a group with particular risk. For this reason the endangered patients were operated in the second period by the same surgeon. The medication and intensive care were the same, but we instilled ten g of a immune globulin into the abdominal cavity of these endangered patients. The reasons and the indication of this therapy will be discussed.