A guide to "when to" and "what to" rather than "how to," this book provides evidence-based surgical reviews to provide credible answers to age-old surgical management questions. The management issues presented are oriented toward interventions and use evidence-based techniques to assess the safety and efficacy of new treatments and rehabilitative or preventative interventions. Each chapter is organized around the key questions essential to delineating the current status of evidence related to the subject reviewed. Publications from the past decade are cited that provide Level I and II evidence using the Oxford scale. Throughout Elective General Surgery, careful assessment of the validity of intervention studies and the strength of the evidence that they provide underlies the choices of cited publications. The information presented in this volume guides the scientific surgeon in providing state-of-the-art care and in optimizing the use of medical resources without losing sight of the need to address the unique needs of individual patients.