[Surgical treatment of sigmoid diverticulitis].

UNLABELLED: From 1972 to 1982 113 patients suffering from diverticulitis of the sigmoid colon were admitted to our hospital. 63 patients underwent conservative-, 50 patients surgical therapy (23 emergency procedures, 27 elective operations). COMPLICATIONS: 8 times free perforation, 15 times retroperitoneal abscess formation, 6 times haemorrhage, 3 times fistulae to the urinary bladder, 9 patients suffered from acute obstruction of the bowel. The infectious focus should be removed completely as early as possible. As an emergency procedure Hartmann's operation is recommended, this means resection of the sigmoid colon and temporal colostomy. In this way the patients life is not endangered by an anastomosis. Only in elective operations we combine resection of the sigmoid colon and anastomosis as one-stage procedure.