Jan Hendrik Louw and intestinal atresia – a personal quest in pediatric surgery
jpedsurg.org shows its articles on its own site.
Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Apr 2021 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
Jan Hendrik Louw pioneered the surgical management of congenital intestinal atresia, reducing mortality from 75% to below 10% through his technique of resecting the dilated proximal bowel segment. His mesenteric vascular accident hypothesis dominated understanding of jejunoileal atresia etiology for decades, though recent research has identified additional genetic and embryological factors.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Abstract
Jan Hendrik Louw (1915-1992), considered the father of pediatric surgery in South Africa, gained prominence for his work on congenital intestinal atresia, a condition that had a mortality as high as 75 percent. His hypothesis, that jejunoileal atresia arose from mesenteric circulatory accidents in utero, was the dominant view until recent research uncovered the involvement of genetic and embryological mechanisms. In the mid-1950s he was one of a number of surgeons to resect the enlarged bulbous segment proximal to the site of the atresia, a crucial step in the surgical approach to intestinal atresia that brought mortality below 10 percent. A world leader in surgery as chair of surgery at the Groote Schur Hospital in Cape Town for more than a quarter century, his work in surgical research took root from his private tragedy early in his career of the death of his own infant son of intestinal atresia, a condition to which he would contribute so much.