[Report of a case of Gardner's syndrome: clinical and epidemiologic considerations and review of the literature].

Familial adenomatous polyposis is a hereditary clinical syndrome characterised by the presence of numerous adenomatous polyps of the colon and rectum and by lesions in other organs. The disease affects various different tissues and characteristically presents a variable biological and clinical behaviour. Colon polyps are precancerous lesions and the certainty of their malignant evolution within the 3rd-4th decades of life is now practically an established, extensively documented fact. Recently, new methods of genetic screening, prevention and early diagnosis and, as a result, more advanced treatment protocols have been introduced in clinical practice, thus offering young patients diagnosed as suffering from familial adenomatous polyposis better prospects and a better quality of life. The patient in our case came in for medical observation for abdominal pain experienced close to the scar of a previous appendectomy and for the presence of an abdominal tumefaction on the same side. Initially the patient underwent surgical resection of the growth that proved to be a desmoid tumour of the abdominal wall. The results of the pathology examination and the patients' long-term disease and family history led to a presumptive diagnosis of familial adenomatous polyposis, which was then confirmed by the appropriate instrumental examinations. Genetic tests on the patient's relatives yielded the same diagnosis in some of them. On the basis of our personal experience and a thorough review of the literature we can safely state that no medical treatment currently available is capable of reducing, let alone definitively eliminating colon polyps. To date, then, the therapeutic options most commonly adopted are colectomy with ileo-rectal anastomosis and total conservative proctocolectomy with an ano-ileal pouch anastomosis. These two types of surgical procedures yield different results in terms of functional capability and oncological radicality with their respective repercussions on the patient's quality of life. The choice of the most appropriate surgical procedure is made on the basis of a series of parameters such as age, site of the polyps, number of polyps, degree of cell atypia of the polyps, and patient willingness to undergo regular check-ups. The current tendency advocated by the various authors is to perform a total colectomy as soon as possible.