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Philip E. Donahue, MD
Chicago, Ill

Arch Surg. 2002;137:959.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Gastrointestinal physiology has had several topics that have perennial interest, including this update on a method for defining the integrity and functional status of the vagus nerve(s). The current report on PP is welcome for several reasons, including the opportunity to consider aspects of vagus nerve function as a topic for the clinical laboratory. The functional integrity of vagus nerves, the immediate focus of investigation, is a question that may arise in postoperative patients who are experiencing digestive tract difficulty; the putative explanation that "damaged vagus nerves" are responsible should be carefully considered, however, as this study indicates.

The wide variations in serum PP levels in the basal and stimulated state (Figure 1 and Figure 3 of the Balaji et al article) are at the heart of the fact that PP levels cannot be a reliable indicator of the status of an individual patient's vagus nerve . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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RELATED ARTICLE

A Safe and Noninvasive Test for Vagal Integrity Revisited
Nagammapudur S. Balaji, Peter F. Crookes, Farzaneh Banki, Jeffrey A. Hagen, Joy E. Ardill, and Tom R. DeMeester
Arch Surg. 2002;137(8):954-959.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT