[Quality assessment of health promotion web sites]

The continuous expansion of the use of Internet has determined an increase in the number of web sites, including those related to health promotion. Even if this new tool provides a faster way to find the desired information, the high number of different sites can confuse the user especially when they present inconsistent data. For this reason, according to the principles contained in the Minerva Manual, we have built a template to evaluate the quality of health care related web sites, and we have verified its validity applying it to ten different sites. The results of this analysis show that the attention to the requirements varies according to the target users, the site focus and the sponsoring agency. Finally we have proposed an ideal web site, choosing, for each requirement in the evaluation grid, the approach that we considered best among the ones adopted by the ten examined sites.

[Radiological and instrumental study of the colon in idiopathic constipation]

It has been demonstrated that it is not always possible to attribute to constipation a reduced colonic transit time as being evidenced by radiological studies using radiopaque markers. In fact, in constipated patients with a normal transit time, it was more reasonable to consider a recto-anal disorder as evidenced by defecography and manometry.

[Radiological examination of esophagoplasty interventions for esophageal cancer]

The experience in the radiological study on the esophagoplasty for esophageal cancer is reported. In the various types of surgical operations: gastroplasty: 284 cases, colonplasty: 28 cases, jejunoplasty: 10 cases, substitution of the cervical esophagus: 74 cases, the radiological contribution is analysed both in the early anastomosis check: after 7 days the intrathoracic and after 10 days the cervical ones, and in the distance check. For this last aspect, particularly the functional pattern, it is also suggested the use of paraphysiologic meals.