[Lateral, partial sphincter myotomy as therapy of chronic anal fissue. Long-term outcome of an epidemiological cohort study].

AIM

We observed a relatively high rate of severe forms of anal incontinence in patients who had undergone lateral, partial, internal, open sphincterotomy for chronic fissure in ano years ago in our clinic. An explicit investigation of pre- and postoperative data for a representative patient group was undertaken to find out whether this incidental finding proved to be meaningful.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The perioperative data from 523 patients who underwent sphincterotomy (Parks) between 1986 and 1997 were analyzed by uni- and multivariate analysis.

RESULTS

Of 209 patients included in the study, 94.7% could be considered healed after operation. Up until the 12th postoperative week, 14.8% of patients were incontinent in stage I and II (Parks). This increased up to 21% at the time of follow-up, mainly in stage II and III, which significantly differed from a healthy control group.

CONCLUSION

Lateral sphincterotomy leads in most cases to quick healing of the chronic fissure in ano with a low recurrence rate. The added effect of degenerative changes was observed to be linked, however, with a higher long-term rate of anal incontinence.