ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Treatment of chronic anal fissure: Is open lateral internal sphincterotomy (LIS) a safe and adequate option?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asjsur.2018.10.001Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • This study supports LIS with its results which displayed high patient satisfaction rates.

  • Like every treatment and procedure, LIS also have some complications, and fecal incontinence is the most unpleasant of them.

  • By presenting the factors that affect both incontinence and recurrence, this study guides the surgeons to select the patients for LIS carefully and recognize the patients with high risk of incontinence and recurrence preoperatively.

Summary

Background

Anal fissure which is defined as a longitudinal tear in anoderm under the dentate line is one of the most common benign diseases of anorectal area, and due to the severe pain during the defecation and emotional stress that it causes may reduce people's quality of life. There are several treatment methods such as medical substances and surgical procedures. In this retrospective study, we aimed to evaluate the safe and adequate option of lateral internal sphincterotomy (LIS) in chronic anal fissure treatment.

Methods

This study is a retrospective study in which 417 patients who were treated for chronic anal fissure were included.

Results

Of 417 patients included in the study, 228 (54.7%) were female and the mean ± SD age was 36.1 ± 8.96 years (ranging from 17 to 73 years). Major complaints of patients; pain, bleeding, constipation, pruritus, perianal discharge.

Recurrence occurred in 15 patients (3.6%) (12 males, three females) and eight patients (1.9%) developed incontinence (four with gas, four with soiling and seven females, one male). The complaints of all patients with gas incontinence and a patient with fluid incontinence regressed, whereas three patients had permanent fluid incontinence.

Conclusion

LIS is still the gold standard for the treatment of chronic anal fissure when the physicians would like to avoid recurrence and obtain the best pain relief.

Keywords

Chronic anal fissure
Incontinence
LIS
Recurrence
Satisfaction

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