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S.V.

JAMA. 1970;212(3):471-472.

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

Nearly ten years ago Kennedy et al¹ demonstrated the feasibility of translumbar amputation for advanced malignancy of the lower half of the body. Two years later Aust and Absolon² performed the first successful hemicorporectomy in a patient with a large ulcerating carcinoma overlying the sacrum, and a total of 20 or so operations on patients with cancer localized to the pelvis has been performed since. But despite a decade of experience, hemicorporectomy continues to be controversial. Its critics find extensive truncation of the body too high a price to pay for prolonging life. They think it unethical to inflict upon a patient an existence which is devoid of so much of the "quality of life." To them the operation is a stunt rather than an act of responsible judgment. In contrast, its protagonists regard it as a great success, a major surgical triumph.

Doubtless, hemicorporectomy is a technical . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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