What is Visceral and Digestive Surgery?

What is visceral and digestive surgery?

Visceral and digestive surgery aims to intervene and improve pathologies affecting the digestive system. It focuses on the prevention, diagnosis, and surgical treatment of digestive system diseases, such as hernias, reflux esophagitis, neoplasms, hepatic metastases, intestinal polyposis, and other pathologies affecting the viscera.

Operations on one or more organs of the digestive system aim to resolve and treat the prognosis of diseases related to the digestive system. The pathologies treated by the visceral and digestive surgeon mainly concern functional, inflammatory, and neoplastic diseases of the upper (esophagus - stomach) and lower (small intestine - rectum) digestive tracts.

Disorders and pathologies treated by the digestive surgeon include:

• Thyroid disorders;
• Diverticulitis;
• Hiatal hernia;
• Inguinal hernia;
• Achalasia;
• Hemorrhoids;

Main treatments include:

• Endoscopic examinations;
• Radiological examinations;
• Surgical interventions;

What does a visceral surgeon do?

Digestive problems can affect almost anyone at some point in their life, young people, older adults, children, adults, men, and women.

Symptoms a person may experience can manifest in various ways:

• In the stomach (with gastritis or gastroesophageal reflux);
• In the intestine (with colitis, which is also a widespread problem and sometimes has psychological implications);
• In the lower intestine with hemorrhoids or fissures;

All these problems can initially be treated by the general practitioner, who can also seek support from a digestive surgeon, i.e., a specialist in the field.

The visceral and digestive surgeon can treat patients with both advice and dietary suggestions (nutrition is a fundamental aspect of gastroenterology) and, if this is not enough, pharmacologically with dedicated therapy that can undoubtedly bring benefits and positive results. Sometimes, when the pathologies to be treated are serious, the doctor may propose surgical solutions.

When should you consult a visceral and digestive surgery specialist?

It is advisable to consult a visceral and digestive surgery specialist when symptoms appear in one or more organs of the digestive system. The symptoms in question are mainly: gastric or epigastric pain, heartburn, intestinal twinges, prolonged constipation or diarrhea that do not spontaneously regress within a few days. If laboratory tests have revealed abnormalities that suggest gastrointestinal pathologies, it is strongly advised to consult a digestive surgeon. Furthermore, when new symptoms appear in relation to the digestive system disease you are suffering from, you should find the best visceral and digestive surgeon to give you appropriate treatment. Finally, it is recommended to consult a visceral and digestive surgery specialist if you have been living with a certain illness for some time but are having difficulty managing it and if you feel you need a second opinion on the diagnosis and/or management of the disease you are suffering from.

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How to choose your visceral surgeon?

Choosing the best visceral and digestive surgeon for digestive surgery can be a difficult choice if you don't rely on the right resources.

Word-of-mouth, even via the web, remains one of the best ways to get good references for choosing the best digestive surgeon, but there are objective and verifiable criteria that can guide you in choosing a specialist. In digestive surgery, the personalization of each case treated is essential. There are no standards or models to be taken as examples once and for all. A good digestive surgeon will ensure the patient the best version of themselves, without distortion, avoiding excesses and exaggerations.

There is no universal solution, whatever the specialty, and even less in digestive surgery. A confirmed professional will also be a specialist in three or four types of cases at most. Moreover, you should be careful about online reviews. Indeed, today, having a good website is also essential to collect testimonials from those who have already used the specialist and thus verify the degree of customer satisfaction.

However, it is important to specify that the competence and reliability of a good digestive surgeon cannot be deduced from a photo or solely from the internet. Word-of-mouth remains very important: comparing yourself to someone who has already been a patient, for example, can help to dispel doubts, and above all, the relationship of trust that is established between professional and patient counts.

What are the risks of visceral or digestive system surgery?

As with any type of surgical intervention, visceral and digestive surgery presents peri- and postoperative risks. These risks vary greatly depending on the different types of operations performed and the pathology treated.

In general, the most frequent complications are essentially two:

• The possibility of hemorrhage in the first few hours after surgery;
• An infectious complication, such as a fistula or dehiscence;

Then there are complications related to anesthesia, especially if the digestive surgery operation required general anesthesia. Postoperative nausea and vomiting can be effectively prevented/treated by the administration of specific medications before and during surgery, but it is also because of their frequency that fasting must be observed the day before surgery. The following complications can also occur:

• Discomfort in the throat due to the insertion of the tube responsible for breathing during surgery;
• Agitation and/or insomnia and/or drowsiness;
• Thirst;

Although rare, episodes of reaction to anesthetics cannot be excluded, the symptoms of which can range from dizziness to severe liver toxicity.

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