The elimination of all or parts of the vagus nerve through a surgical procedure is called vagotomy. Vagus nerve runs from the bottom of the brain and runs through the neck and all the way through the esophagus, stomach, and intestine. All these body parts are the part of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract that helps in food digestion to extract energy and nutrients for use by the body while the remaining waste is expelled out as feces.
Doctors perform vagotomy procedures in order to treat stomach ulcers that are formed due to erosion caused by the stomach acid or because of sores formed from an H. pylori infection. It helps to reduce the acid amount that the stomach produces. Based on different purposes, vagotomy can be of several types, such as selective vagotomy, truncal vagotomy, and highly selective vagotomy. However, nowadays, vagotomy is rarely performed as the procedure is replaced by advanced treatment options available today. But still, in some cases, doctors carry out vagotomy in combination with other methods such as diversion, abdominal drainage, resection, and pyloroplasty.
