[The role of decompressive transversotomy in surgery of the left colon and rectum (personal experience)].

Personal experience of 135 operations on the left colon and the rectum, with simultaneous formation of decompressive transversotomy, is presented. According to the Authors, decompressive transversotomy is the sole method capable not of avoiding anastomotic dehiscences, but of ensuring that they do not become clinically manifest, and hence of reducing the mortality connected therewith. The doubts sometimes raised with regard to the method seem in the Authors' opinion to be linked to technical shortcomings in performance of the transversotomy itself.