Although I had gone through most of the surgical fields of training, my knowledge and experience will be focused on the particular specialty, where I have developed a particular interest and where I can provide a better care to my patients.

During my residency, I recognized the deficiency in understanding the basic principle in the management of diseases. And at times, I needed to ask my senior or to consult other books in order to understand the particular issue. With that experience in my mind, this book has been comprehensively compiled with all aspects of surgical anatomy, surgical physiology, and dealing with all sorts of clinical and operative skills in the field of colorectal surgery.

In ageing populations, carcinoma of the colon and rectum seems to be a major concern to the families and to the medical profession, in particular when the surgical science has been changing faster than one can grasp it. To meet this challenge, this new book has been written, covering all aspects of new revelations and ideas with a particular interest in colorectal surgery.

In this book, I have described the symptoms, clinical examination, investigations and merits of different treatments reported in the literature. I have highlighted the recent trend in surgical treatment for the rectal carcinoma. I hope this book will assist the trainee surgeons to understand the difference between the two schools of thought, difference between two surgical approaches and technical benefits between the conventional and new operative procedures for the same surgical pathology.

I have highlighted the conflicting surgical anatomy between the textbook of clinical surgery and the textbook of anatomy. At the same time, I have focused the consistency between two arguments along with my own views, based upon my own anatomical dissection, clinical and operative experience.

Although one can learn a skill and gain a practical experience by working in the field of colorectal surgery, it is not possible for everyone to be fully aware of the recent changes, published in the literature. It has been well established that colonoscopy provides additional diagnostic evidences, but it is not without problems. To improve the clinical management, colonography has been a new diagnostic tool in clinical medicine. Its clinical importance and its pitfalls have been highlighted in this book. Apart from these technologies, many radiological evidences, such as modern role of CT scan, MRI scan and PET scan have been compiled in this book. This would provide immense clinical value in the management of diseases. This book will provide the necessary diet to meet individual quest without searching for further information in other literature.

Since 1973, I had started working in the specialty of colorectal surgery and developed interest in both surgical techniques and improving the postoperative stay in the hospital. I am pleased to highlight that I am pioneer of many new innovative surgical techniques. Among many of my original contributions reported to the surgical and medical literature, primary perineal wound healing that provides a great comfort to the patients after total excision of the rectum, is a great achievement. During my prospective study, I have noticed a great deal of difference in the management of the carcinoma of the rectum, wound infection, postoperative pain relief and fecal peritonitis. With the background of my research and practical experiences, this book has been written entirely by me. I hope this book would provide valuable facts to the surgical students, in particular to those who intend to practice in colorectal surgery and to those who have been working in this specialty.

Since colonoscopic tools are widely available, radiological investigations are less frequently used in the investigation of the colonic diseases. As a result, academic input to the postgraduate students has become a problem in the absence of true radiological features of certain colonic diseases such as ischemic colitis, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's colitis or familial polyposis coli. I have, therefore, retrieved a few rare radiological images from other literatures for the benefit of the postgraduate students. And I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Dr AK Dutta Munshi, Dr Cornah and Dr S Sinha for providing me several radiological illustrations from their collections. I am grateful to Prof Subir Kumar Chatterjee, Professor of Anatomy, for assisting me in the dissection of the rectum in his department, NRS Medical College and Hospital.