Laparoscopic colo-rectal surgery in octogenarians

Methods From 1 January 2003 to 30 June 2008, 128 colo-rectal operations were performed on patients 80 years old or more, at the Department of General Surgery of University Politecnica delle Marche. Patients were composed of 61 (47.6%) males and 67 (52.4%) females. Mean age was 83.4 years (range 80–95). Ninety-four (73.4%) operations were carried out by laparoscopic technique versus 34 (26.6%) by laparotomic approach. Surgical operations were: 47 (36.7%) right colectomy, 38 (29.7%) left colectomy, 8 (6.3%) transverse resection, 3 (2.3%) sigmoid resections, 20 (15.6%) rectum resections, 10 (7.8%) abdomino-perineal rectum amputation, 1 (0.8%) total colectomy. Indications were represented by malignant lesions in 89 patients (94.7%) of LR and by 27 cases (82.4%) of OR.