The authors report their experience of 136 operations for rectal neoplasms, on all of 652 colo-rectal neoplasms, treated from January 1987 to May 1994. In detail the perianastomotic complications have been tested after "traditional" rectal operations: Anterior Resection (RA), Abdomino-perineal amputation (AAP) and Hartmann's procedure. A series of 24 AAP (18%), 81 RA (60%) and 7 Hartmann's procedure have been considered; conversely 18 final and palliative colostomies (13%) and 7 trans-anal operations haven't been taken in to account. Perioperative mortality was comparatively reasonable: 2.7%. No patient died after AAP. The most common complication proved to be anastomotic leak (17.3%), after RA; otherwise the rate of further complications was very moderate. It is feasible to avoid anastomotic leaks, by carrying out a temporary colostomy.