Geriatric Surgery

This open access book on Geriatric Surgery is an invaluable resource for healthcare professionals managing elderly surgical patients. It provides essential guidance to improve patient outcomes, optimize surgical decision-making, and enhance perioperative care. Older adults often have multiple comorbidities, altered physiological responses, and increased surgical risks. This manual equips surgeons and clinicians with evidence-based protocols to minimize complications such as infections, delirium, and poor wound healing. It also highlights best practices in prehabilitation, anesthesia considerations, and postoperative recovery strategies tailored to elderly patients.

Surgical decision-making in geriatric patients is complex due to factors like frailty, cognitive impairment, and life expectancy. This well-structured manual outlines risk assessment models, such as the Frailty Index and Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), ensuring a patient-centered approach that balances surgical benefits against potential risks. Modern geriatric surgery relies on collaboration between surgeons, anesthesiologists, geriatricians, physiotherapists, and dietitians. Our manual facilitates this teamwork by providing integrated care pathways, nutritional guidelines, and rehabilitation protocols to improve recovery and reduce hospital stays.

For medical trainees and general surgeons, this geriatric surgery manual serves as an educational tool to understand the unique challenges of operating on older adults. It includes case studies, clinical algorithms, and practical recommendations that enhance their skills and decision-making abilities. By implementing best practices, hospitals can reduce complications, ICU admissions, and readmissions, ultimately cutting healthcare costs while improving patient quality of life. In summary, this geriatric surgery manual is crucial in providing structured, evidence-based guidance for optimizing surgical care in older adults, leading to better outcomes and more efficient healthcare delivery. 

Fausto Catena is the Chief of the  Department of Emergency and General Surgery  at the Bufalini Hospital  of Cesena, Italy, and Associate Professor of General Surgery at the University of Bologna. His activity focuses on the following pathologies: inguinal hernia, colorectal cancer, laparocele, diverticulitis, abdominal diastasis, ulcerative colitis. He is professionally dedicated to the following specialist areas: proctology Emergency and trauma surgery, oncological surgery, sarcoma and carcinosis surgery, minimally invasive surgery, colo-rectal surgery, kidney transplantation, and abdominal wall surgery. He performed more than 4500 medium- high level surgical procedures.

He is Editor in Chief of the World Journal of Emergency Surgery, Editor of other 30 Journals and Member of the Committee on Publication Ethics. Prof  Catena was an invited speaker or chairman  in approximately 300 national and international Congress. He is General Secretary of the World Society of Emergency Surgery, General Secretary of the Italian Society of Surgical Physiopathology, President Elect  of the Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery, past Member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Society of Digestive Pathology and Past President of ESYS- European College of Surgeons- Italian Chapter. Since 2012 he has been Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons UK.  Prof Catena is a world renowned opinion leader in emergency surgery: he wrote all the WSES guidelines- position papers in this scientific field. ; he has been included in the list of Top Scientists Stanford University. He wrote more than 1000 scientific papers, (more than 500 on pubmed, H index = 71) ) 50  book chapters and 10 Books. Prof  Catena won 25 national and international scientific prizes. 

Prof. Paolo Carcoforo currently holds the position of Director of the Operative Unit of Surgery 2 at the Arcispedale Sant'Anna of Ferrara, as well as being a Full Professor at the University of Ferrara. He is an expert in General Surgery.In 1986 he graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Ferrara, where he specialised in General Surgery in 1991 and later in Vascular Surgery.He mainly deals with surgical treatment for the following pathologies: breast cancer, thyroid cancer, melanoma, obesity, endocrine neoplasms and breast ultrasound.He is also a member of prestigious scientific societies and author of numerous publications.