[Are their specific guidelines in surgical management in geriatric surgery?].

Progress in perioperative management, anesthesia, surgical technique and intensive care have led to a continuous reduction in risk for geriatric patients. Thus advanced age itself means no higher operative risk and should not be a cause for excluding the elderly from greater curative procedures. But it is necessary to define a special strategy of treatment which takes the special situation of the elderly into consideration. Older people are very often high risk patients because they must be operated with advanced diseases. Earlier operations in the elective state, therefore, have great significance in the prevention of geriatric surgery.