Vagotomy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of surgical procedure that reduces gastric acid production by cutting particular nerve pathways
2. A surgical technique aimed at decreasing acid secretion in the stomach by severing specific nerves associated with gastrointestinal function
3. A procedure performed to lessen stomach acid by interrupting the neural connections that regulate digestive activity

Etymology: "Vagotomy" is a compound built from two parts, "vago-" and "-tomy". The second part comes from Ancient Greek "temnein", meaning "to cut", which gave English a whole family of surgical terms ending in "-tomy", such as "appendectomy" and "lobotomy" in a more general sense of cutting into or out of something. The "-tomy" element carries the core sense of the word: a vagotomy is a cutting operation. The first part, "vago-", is a combining form of "vagus", the Latin word for "wandering". It refers to the vagus nerve, the long nerve that runs from the brainstem down through the chest and abdomen. The name is apt, since the nerve branches widely and roams across many organs, and it is the nerve that signals the stomach to produce acid. Cutting it, or certain branches of it, is what reduces acid output.