Eastern J Med. 2020; 25(4): 565-570 | DOI: 10.5505/ejm.2020.56887

Evaluation Of Patient Satisfaction After Lateral Internal Spinchterotomy For The Treatment Of Chronic Anal Fissure

Mutlu Sahin, Dogan Ozturk
Department of General Surgery, Kecioren Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey

INTRODUCTION: Lateral internal sphincterotomy (LIS) improves chronic fissures, but is associated with potential long-term complications such as fecal incontinence (FI). Our aim in this study is to reveal the effects of chronic anal fissure (CAF) and related FI on quality of life (QOL), and to evaluate the changes in patients' QOL after LIS operation.
METHODS: Patients who had undergone open LIS operation between 2016 and 2019 were included in the study. "Short Form-36 (SF-36)" QOL assessment form was applied to all patients, in the preoperative period and on the sixth month and / or first year follow-up.
RESULTS: A total of 86 patients were included in the study. In the SF-36 QOL scale comparisons of patients with and without FI; general health (GH), physical condition (PHC), psychological state (PSS) and social condition (SC) subscale scores were found to be statistically significantly different (p<0.05). SF-36 QOL subscale scores were found to be higher in the postoperative period compared to the preoperative period. The differences were statistically significant for GH, PHC and SC (p=0.002, p=0.005, p=0.001, respectively), except for PSS (p=0.178).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: LIS is a reliable operation with low complication rates, other than fecal incontinence. Fecal incontinence reduces the quality of life score, but can be ignored. Although there is a certain level of fecal incontinence risk after LIS operation, the quality of life increases in the majority of patients after this operation. Therefore, it is appropriate to recommend LIS operation to CAF patients, for a better quality of life.

Keywords: Anal fissure, lateral internal sphincterotomy, quality of life, fecal incontinence

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