Geriatric Surgery

Fausto Catena is Associate Professor of General Surgery at the University of Bologna. His activity focuses on the following pathologies: inguinal hernia, colorectal cancer, laparocele, diverticulitis, abdominal diastasis, ulcerative colitis. He is professionally dedicated to the following specialist areas: proctology emergency and trauma surgery, oncological surgery, sarcoma and carcinosis surgery, minimally invasive surgery, colo-rectal surgery, kidney transplantation, and abdominal wall surgery. He performed more than 4500 medium-high level surgical procedures.
He is Editor in Chief of the World Journal of Emergency Surgery, Editor of other 30 Journals and Member of the Committee on Publication Ethics. Prof. Catena was an invited speaker or chairman in approximately 300 national and international Congress. He is General Secretary of the World Society of Emergency Surgery, General Secretary of the Italian Society of Surgical Physiopathology, President Elect of the Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery, past Member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Society of Digestive Pathology and Past President of ESYS- European College of Surgeons- Italian Chapter. Since 2012 he has been Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons UK. Prof Catena is a world-renowned opinion leader in emergency surgery: he wrote all the WSES guidelines-position papers in this scientific field; he has been included in the list of Top Scientists Stanford University. He wrote more than 1000 scientific papers, (more than 500 on pubmed, H-index = 71), 50 book chapters and 10 Books. Prof. Catena won 25 national and international scientific prizes.
Dr. Paolo Carcoforo, full professor of Surgery since 2016, is a highly accomplished surgeon and academic who completed his specialization in General Surgery with honors in 1991 and in Vascular Surgery with honors in 1997, and has been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences since 1999. He has held several significant institutional roles, including Director of the Departmental Research Center for Intraoperative Radioguided and Radioimmunoguided Diagnosis and Treatment of Tumors from 2005 to 2009, Director of the Research Center for Pelvic Floor Disorders since 2022, and Director of the Residency Program in General Surgery since 2018. In 2024 he became President of the Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery (SICG) and he has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Italian Society of Surgery (SIC) for the 2025-2028 term. As a professor at the University of Ferrara, he teaches General Surgery in the MD program and contributes to the training of students in Nursing, Radiologic Technology, and multiple residency programs, including General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Orthopedics, Gynecology and Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Oncology, Dermatology, and Venereology. Clinically, he serves as Director of the Complex Operative Unit of Surgery 2 and of the Breast Surgery Unit at the University Hospital of Ferrara, with expertise in breast cancer, thyroid cancer, melanoma, and the surgical management of onco-hematologic patients, having performed over 16,000 certified surgical procedures since 1993. His scientific activity includes contributions to 10 academic textbooks, leadership in 10 research programs, participation in 33 projects (many of which multicenter and international), more than 200 conference presentations, 305 peer-reviewed publications with over 4,000 citations and an H-index of 38, and multiple awards and research grants, including funding from AIRC, the Italian League Against Cancer, and the Italian Ministry of Health.