Laparoscopy in combination with laparoscopic ultrasonography is a new staging procedure for tumors of the abdomen. The treatment of several other tumor entities, such as pancreatic and gastric cancer, lymphoma, ovarian cancer, liver malignancies, is also improved by more accurate staging. Laparoscopic staging helps prevent unnecessary laparotomies, provides much less trauma to the patient, maximum information on tumor spread, and enables palliative procedures to be performed during the staging procedure. This book provides detailed guidelines on the aim and technique of laparoscopic staging...

Primary and metastasizing malignant carcinoma of the liv- er represent a challenge to both the diagnostician and the therapist. For this reason, it appears a worthwhile task to review the current status of knowledge about the treatment of primary and metastasizing tumors of the liver. The ques- tion is whether modem diagnostic methods and new thera- peutic concepts can help to improve the prospects of treat- ment. Of particular interest is the role played by therapeu- tic procedures directly involving the liver. Thus, it is equally important to discuss the pathophysiological and...

Modern surgical oncology is characterized by multimodal therapy. In recent years numerous therapeutic approaches of pre-, peri-, intra-and postoperative treatment have been in- vestigated with regard to their use in combination with surgi- cal intervention. It now is time to analyze and to define the state of our knowledge. For tumors of the gastrointestinal tract there are several encouraging therapeutic approaches, such as preop- erative chemotherapy in esophageal and perioperative chemotherapy in colon cancer. For some special tumors, like anal carcinoma, we have clearly defined combined...