[Emergency surgical treatment of spontaneous internal fistulas of the digestive tract].

The Authors report 16 cases of gastrointestinal fistulas which have been observed during the last 5 years in the Emergency Surgery Division of Milan's Fatebenefratelli Hospital. We have considered only the cases of fistulas between two hollow abdominal organs and which have occurred spontaneously, following local pathology (cholelithiasis, neoplasms, abscesses etc.) and not from iatrogenic causes. Of these 16 patients, all surgically treated, 9 were female and 7 male, their age ranging from 24 to 77 years (average: 58 years). The medium post-operative period was of 11 days; the overall mortality was of 2 patients (12,5 per cent). These, having presented at surgery a serious stercoraceous peritonitis, died of septic shock.