[Treatment of complicated peptic ulcer: personal experience].

Background: The availability of drugs which can effectively inhibit gastric secretion allowed the control of the peptic disease in almost all the patients, but the incidence of complications is substantially unchanged.

Methods: In the present study, we performed a retrospective evaluation of 153 patients treated for complicated peptic ulcer (hemorrhage and perforation) in the last 6 years. Hemor-rhage is a common onset of the peptic disease and it rarely requires a surgical treatment, because medical and endoscopic therapies are successful in a high number of patients.

Emergency surgery for patients with colorectal cancer over 90 years of age.

Background/aims: Colorectal cancer has an extremely poor prognosis in the elderly with high rates of emergency presentation and perioperative mortality. This report examines our experience and results in the emergency treatment of patients older than 90 years with colorectal cancer.

Methodology: From 1995 to 2000, 486 patients with colorectal cancer were operated on in an emergency surgery situation at the Department of Emergency Surgery of Sant'Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital.

[Emergency surgery of colorectal cancer in patients older than 80 years of age].

Aim: In elderly people colorectal cancer has an high incidence of emergency presentation. In this article we report our experience on colorectal emergency surgery for cancers in patients older than 80 yrs.

Methods: From October 1995 to December 2000 323 patients were submitted to emergency surgical procedure for colorectal cancer at the Dpt of Emergency Surgery of University of Bologna.

Use of prosthetic mesh in complicated incisional hernias.

Background: Incisional hernia (IH) repair with conventional techniques is associated with high recurrence rate. Surgical repair using prosthetic biomaterials is becoming increasingly popular. On the basis of the good results an increasing number of surgeons have begun to use this technique.

Gallstone ileus in Caroli's disease.

This report describes a patient with a type II Caroli' s disease who developed a gallstone ileus. Previous hepaticojejunostomy operations were thought to have facilitated the migration of stones into the bowel and consequent gallstone ileus. This complication, which was strongly suspected from the clinical history, was diagnosed by ultrasound examination despite the absence of aberrantly located stones on plain abdominal x-ray.