[The role of laparoscopy in ovarian carcinoma]. / Il ruolo della laparoscopia nel carcinoma ovarico.

The role of minimally invasive surgery in the management of gynecologic cancers is continuously expanding. Although few trials have focused on the safety of laparoscopy in oncology, laparoscopy is now widely used for most gynecological malignancies. Laparoscopy is widely used to manage benign ovarian masses, but its role in managing ovarian cancer still needs to be defined. The role of laparoscopy in ovarian cancer surgery may be divided into three following categories: 1) laparoscopic staging of apparent early ovarian cancer; 2) laparoscopic assessment of disease extent and potential for resectability; 3) laparoscopic reassessment, or second-look operation, or rule out recurrence. Laparoscopic approach has shown several advantages like a reduction in operating time, blood loss, hospital stay, and total hospital charges. The limitations of laparoscopic practice include inadequate port-site metastasis, tumour dissemination due to cyst rupture and incomplete staging. In addition, there were limitations in performing extensive laparoscopic sampling of areas of tumor persistence including retroperitoneal lymph nodes. In literature there are no randomized studies assessing the use of laparoscopy in the management of ovarian cancer. Moreover, most of the studies in literature comparing laparoscopy and laparotomy are carried out by surgeons specialized in one of two approaches, so that the results can not be compared.

[Tubo-peritoneal factor of infertility: diagnosis and treatment]. / Diagnosi e terapia del fattore tubo-peritoneale di sterilità.

Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive despite regular unprotected sexual intercourse over 12 years, affects approximately 10% of the fertile population. The commonest cause of tubal damage is pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which in the developed world is caused mainly by Chlamydia trachomatis infection. The incidence of tubal damage after one episode of pelvic infection is approximately 12%, 23% after two episodes and 54% after three episodes. Other causes of tubal damage include postsurgical adhesions or endometriosis. Tubal patency can be diagnosed by hysterosalpingography (HSG) or laparoscopy with chromopertubation. Surgery represents the best therapeutic approach for tubal pathology, with a term pregnancy rate of 70% after surgery in selected patients, while the latest results in Italy of assisted reproductive technology (ART) report a live birth rate per cycle of 13.8%. In conclusion, tubal reconstructive surgery remains an important option for many couples and surgery should be the fi rst line approach for a correct diagnosis and treatment of tubal infertility.