Director: Salvatore Gruttadauria

The clinical activity focuses on the study and treatment of hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and intestinal diseases, and other benign or oncological abdominal organ diseases. The services offered by the Unit include elective and urgent admission; day hospital; day surgery and one-day surgery; and outpatient clinic with examination and pre-admission diagnostic tests. Evidence-based protocols ensure the utmost competence and appropriateness of the services. The Unit meets the clinical and care needs of patients in short hospital stays, with a high quality of care. The diagnostic and therapeutic approach to the surgical patient takes place in a multidisciplinary and multispecialty environment that allows the clinicians to obtain a complete and thorough picture of the patient thanks to the involvement of anesthesiology, oncology, radiology, endoscopy, gastroenterology, hepatology, cardiology, pulmonary, diabetology, infectious diseases, nephrology, neurology, nutritional, and psychology specialists.

Diagnosis and treatment of hepatobiliary diseases

The Unit offers complete diagnostic services (also invasive) to identify and classify benign and malignant liver and biliary tract diseases. Treatments are diversified across a wide range of therapeutic approaches: from interventional radiology to surgical endoscopy, laparoscopic and traditional surgical procedures. Minimally-invasive surgery for treatment of neoplastic diseases includes minor and major laparoscopic liver resections and ablation treatments (radiofrequency, microwaves).

The laparoscopic approach has significant advantages in the post-op period in terms of pain control and overall physical recovery. In addition, the minimally-invasive technique allows the Unit to expand the indications for surgery in liver cirrhosis patients. The Unit performs complex liver resection surgery, such as interventions in different phases, after vascular embolization or selective vascular ligation, interventions with vascular exclusion, and in extracorporeal circulation or with vascular reconstruction.

Diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases

The surgical treatments for gastrointestinal cancer range from diagnosis to surgery, with special focus on conservative oncologic surgical treatment. Laparoscopy surgery has wide applications in this field, allowing increasingly conservative interventions to preserve quality of life.

Other abdominal surgeries

The Unit also performs diagnosis and treatment of benign and malignant diseases of the kidney and ureter. Recently, a better knowledge of the biological activity of kidney and urinary tract cancer, associated with more advanced surgical techniques, has led to an improvement in the treatment of patients with cancer of the urinary tract. A new generation of minimally-invasive surgical techniques has been introduced at ISMETT, including percutaneous thermal ablation, laparoscopic nephrectomy, and minimally-invasive partial nephrectomy employed for small or peripheral renal masses. Patients with benign diseases of the abdominal wall (hernias, post-laparotomy) with serious comorbidities and high complexity of care are also treated and managed.