Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 7, 2015; 21(1): 360-368
Published online Jan 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i1.360
Giant colonic diverticulum, clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment: Systematic review of 166 cases
Giuseppe Nigri, Niccolò Petrucciani, Giulia Giannini, Paolo Aurello, Paolo Magistri, Marcello Gasparrini, Giovanni Ramacciato
Giuseppe Nigri, Niccolò Petrucciani, Giulia Giannini, Paolo Aurello, Paolo Magistri, Marcello Gasparrini, Giovanni Ramacciato, Department of Surgery, Sapienza Università di Roma, St. Andrea Hospital, 00189 Rome, Italy
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Giuseppe Nigri, MD, PhD, FACS, FRCS, FASCRS, Asistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Sapienza Università di Roma, St. Andrea Hospital, Via di Grottarossa 1037, 00189 Rome, Italy. giuseppe.nigri@uniroma1.it
Telephone: +39-6-33775634 Fax: +39-6-33775634
Received: May 31, 2014
Peer-review started: June 2, 2014
First decision: June 27, 2014
Revised: August 19, 2014
Accepted: September 29, 2014
Article in press: September 30, 2014
Published online: January 7, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: This article presents a systematic and comprehensive review of all the studies concerning giant colonic diverticulum. The majority of the published studies are case reports on single cases. The authors performed an extensive literature search and a systematic review, with the aim of collecting and providing complete and updated information regarding the clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of this rare disease. The results of the review indicate that surgical treatment, consisting predominantly of colonic resection with en bloc resection of the diverticulum, is the preferred option for giant colonic diverticulum and guarantees excellent results.