Operative treatment of recurrent or complicated diverticulitis.

Sigmoid diverticulosis remains a common disease in developed Western countries, and surgeons are frequently asked to manage diverticulitis and its complications. When to offer elective surgery to patients with uncomplicated, but recurrent, diverticulitis should be individualized, and practice recommendations by national societies continues to be debated. Complicated diverticulitis remains a surgically treated disease, and new technology such as colonic stents (for obstruction) and computed-tomography-guided percutaneous drainage (for abscess) have become bridging techniques to avoid two-stage operations in selected patients. Minimally invasive surgery for elective sigmoid resection has been shown to be safe and feasible and confers many patient-related short-term over traditional open surgery.