Ferdinando Agresta is Chief of the General Surgery Department of the Vittorio Veneto Hospital (North-Eastern Italy). His main field of interest is laparoscopic surgery, in particular in the emergency setting, and the analysis of the laparoscopic approach outcomes in both scheduled and emergency surgery in the elderly. He has been the main investigator in several studies on emergency and elective laparoscopy and is President of the Italian Society of Laparoscopic Surgery and New Technologies (SICE). Mauro Podda has been HPB honorary clinical fellow at the Department of Surgery of Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee (UK), and attending general surgeon with special interest in robotic gastro-intestinal surgery and acute care surgery at the Minimally Invasive Surgery Unit, San Francesco Hospital, Nuoro (Italy). He is now a consultant general and an emergency surgeon at Cagliari University Hospital. His main research fields are minimally invasive gastric, pancreatic, colorectal and general emergency surgery, and he is currently involved in the development of national and international surgical guidelines on acute appendicitis and laparoscopic ventral hernia repair. Carlo Bergamini works at the Emergency Surgery Unit of the University Hospital of Careggi, Florence, Italy, and is a specialist in general surgery, immunology and emergency medicine. He also worked as an immunologist at Careggi hospital and as an emergency doctor at Pistoia hospital and various territorial emergency services for six years. He is an expert on internal, surgical, vascular and interventional ultrasound. Fabio Cesare Campanile is Director of Surgery at the  Hospital of Civita Castellana (Italy), a specialist in general surgery, fellow of the American Board of Surgery, and holds a Master’s in Economics. He practices elective and emergency general surgery with a particular focus on laparoscopic and bariatric surgery. He regularly serves as a chairman or lecturer at national and international scientific meetings on laparoscopic, bariatric and emergency surgery. He is involved in the development of national and international surgical guidelines on emergency and laparoscopic surgery, and his work has been published in leading international journals. Gabriele Anania is an Associated Professor at the University of Ferrara, and teaches general surgery at the Medical School of the same University. Currently he is the Chief of the Laparoscopic Surgery Unit at the University Hospital of Ferrara and a member of the Academic Board of the PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Ferrara. He has been involved in research studies on laparoscopic surgery at national and international centers (e.g. RIFT Study and IMAGINE Study).