Considerazioni medico legali su un caso di responsabilità professionale in ambito gastroenterologico

The authors analyze a case of professional liability in the field of gastroenterology: a iatrogenic perforation of the sigmoid colon in a patient affected by intestinal diverticulitis and undergone in the same day colonoscopy with biopsy and double contrast barium enema. This perforation was not immediately recognized by doctors, although the patient complained of severe abdominal pain. Only after three days, a stercoraceous peritonitis was diagnosed and an intervention of anterior resection of the left colon was performed. The authors, after describing the case, present considerations about causality, both in terms of legal medicine and jurisprudence.