records (SDO), which were coded as having Diverticular Disease as the primary condition (corresponding to icd-9cm: 562.10; 562.11; 562.12; 562.13)during a period of seven years between 2004 and 2010, was obtained from the Health Department of A.O.U Federico II.

This was the result of a computer search in the archive of our Health Department. The hospital discharge records (SDO) were divided into inpatient admissions and outpatient accesses. The SDO were also divided by hospital department.

In order to simplify this subdivision five macro-groups of departments were created: General Surgery, Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Other.

The examined parameters included inpatient admissions, outpatient accesses, hospitalization days, diagnostic tests, surgery and economic refunds.

Results and discussion
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A total of 738 patients were treated in the period between January 2004 and December 2010. There were 840Introduction: Spinal vascular malformations.
From the earliest observations of spinal vascular malformations, successful management has been challenging. Initially the challenges were diagnosing, understanding, and treating these lesions. They were originally considered all to be the same, or at least to be a single general type, of disease. With the introduction of selective spinal arteriography in the 1960s and more recently with the introduction and widespread use of MR imaging, the initial challenge of diagnosing spinal vascular malformations was overcome, and significant progress has been made in understanding their anatomy as well as the pathophysiology that underlies the myelopathy commonly associated with them. The anatomical features defined by selective arteriography and the observations permitted with the operating microscope ultimately led to distinctions between the major categories of the vascular lesions