SIMPOSIO EDITORIALE: La terapia del cancro del retto sottoperitoneale

Abstract

I would like to thank Prof. Nicola Picardi, the Co-Editors, and the Scientific Committee of Annali Italiani di Chirurgia for their kind invitation to organize a symposium on the treatment of cancer of the subperitoneal rectum.

This topic is very often discussed by scientific societies and is frequently the subject of articles in medical journals.

Therefore it may seem, at first glance, that this was not a very original choice of subject matter for a symposium, and that there are not many points that need to be clarified or updated.

However, it is my profound conviction that this is not the case.

Assiduous perusal of the literature and participation in congresses dedicated to this subject have convinced me that there are still many controversial points to discuss. I began planning this symposium by asking all colleagues with whom I have close professional contacts to participate, since I knew from direct experience that they would be interested in the specific topics assigned to them. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their collaboration. I also decided to round out the symposium with a questionnaire.

When designing the questionnaire, we agreed to evaluate how Italian surgeons handle this disease. Since we wanted the largest possible number of questionnaires to be completed, we did not require laborious checks of case records which we feared would discourage surgeons from responding. In sending out the questionnaire we had the collaboration of the Società Italiana di Chirurgia (SIC) which dealt with mailing them to all members who had provided email addresses. I would therefore like to thank the president of the SIC, Prof. Enrico De Antoni, the secretary, Prof. Rocco Bellantone, the entire board of directors, Mrs. Serena Cocci, who is in charge of the secretariat, and all the colleagues who honored me with their collaboration and took the time to fill out the questionnaire. A list of all the surgeons who did so can be found in the section dedicated to the questionnaire.