[The Hartmann intervention. The current indications and the authors' own experience]. / L'intervento secondo Hartmann. Indicazioni attuali ed esperienza personale.

Seventy years after it was first presented at the 30th Congress of the French Association of Surgery Hartmann's operation still fulfils a necessary albeit limited role in colorectal surgery. It is generally regarded as necessary in emergency surgery when general or local conditions advise against immediate anastomosis or would make it dangerous, or more rarely it is used electively in palliative neoplastic pathologies. The authors report their personal experience over twenty years and the reasons which led them to opt for this technique rather than others. Their personal postoperative mortality rate is similar to that reported in the literature and is not correlated to surgical trauma but rather to the severity of clinical conditions.

[Prevention of laryngeal nerve lesions in thyroid surgery]. / La prevenzione delle lesioni dei nervi laringei nella chirurgia della tiroide.

The authors analyse problems related to laryngeal nerves in matters of thyroid surgery. As a matter of fact laryngeal nerve injury is still one of the most common complications for patients undergoing thyroid surgery. Although the sharp reduction in this drawback, due to a better anesthesiological technique and a wider surgical experience, the most representative case report show an incidence ranging from 3% to 5%. After a short introduction on surgical anatomy, attention is drawn to the "recurrent nerve risk" but also the superior laryngeal nerve too, often injured with modifications of the vocal tone and serious consequences for particular professional groups. There fore it is of basic importance, for surgeons performing thyroid surgery, to dissect the recurrent nerve for all its length, that is from the crossing with the inferior thyroid artery to the point where it enters the cricothyroid cartilage; in order not to damage the thin nervous branches and eventually anatomic variations that, when looked for, are cause of mistakes even for the most experienced surgeons.

[Diverticulosis of the sigmoid colon: when to operate and which surgical treatment to use]. / La diverticolosi del colon sigma: quando intervenire e che trattamento chirurgico eseguire.

Diverticulosis of the colon is an increasing frequent disease: 50% of all subjects over 70 are affected by this pathology. The paper reports a series of cases and a therapeutic approach for simple, symptomatic and complicated diverticulosis. The long-term results are also reported.