The surgery of pregnancy and labour complicated with tumours / by J. Bland-Sutton.

  • Sir John Bland-Sutton, 1st Baronet
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The surgery of pregnancy and labour complicated with tumours / by J. Bland-Sutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    19/58 (page 17)
    few. A critical study of a large number of records led me to formulate the results in tbis way: Before the fourth month of pregnancy single and double ovariotomy is attended with an exceedingly low rate of mortality, and the risk of disturbing the pregnancy is small. The re- moval of a parovarian cyst during pregnancy is more liable to disturb the uterus than simple or double ovario- tomy. After the fourth month the risk is that of an ordinary ovariotomy, but the chance of abortion increases with each month. jS^ow that we realise the importance of removing ovarian tumours whenever they are detected, quite a large number of records have been published in which ovariotomy has been successfully performed in the later stages of preg- nancy, and in three instances it has been carried out successfully at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy by Pippingskold,* by myself,t and by Morse.+ In Morse’s, as in my patient, the tumour was a dermoid incar- cerated in the pelvis by the pregnant uterus. In my case the tumour was detected during the birth of the patient’s child, which was stillborn in consequence of the obstruc- tion which it offered to delivery, and no active steps were taken to have the tumour removed until the woman was again well advanced in pregnancy (seven and a half months). This being the condition I thought it judicious to keep her under observation in the hospital until near term, so that in the event of the operation precipitating labour the child would be thoroughly viable. Five years after the operation the mother and child presented them- selves in excellent health. It has now been clearly demonstrated that ovariotomy has been performed with very marked success in each of the nine months of ])regnancy, and it has now in a fair number of instances been carried out whilst the patient * ‘ American Journal of Obstetrics,’ vol. xiii, p. 308. t ‘ Brit. Med. Journ.,’ 1896, vol. i, p. 461. t ‘ Transactions of the Obstetrical Society t>f London,’ vol. xxxviii, p. 221. 2