[Role of surgery in gastrointestinal lymphomas]

The role of surgery in primary gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin lymphoma is still controverted. The author reviews the advantages of surgery, which alone allows diagnosis in emergencies, serves to assess the extent of the disease, offers a means of preventing complications chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and has a therapeutic function. He also assesses the drawbacks of surgery and provides exact surgical indications depending on the circumstances and localization of the lymphoma. In an area which has seen rapid changes in 1995, surgery still retains an important role in the therapeutic arsenal.