W retrospectively studied 40 patients who were admitted to our department with anorectal trauma during 1996-2004. There were 36 male and 4 female patients with a mean age of 24 + 5.35 (range 20-36 years). We analyzed the injury severity score (ISS) and abbreviated injury scale (AIS) recorded for each patient at the time of admission. The mean ISS was 13.2 + 7.1 (range 4-38). Mean age was 24 + 5...

OBJECTIVE To identify risk factors associated with anal sphincter tear during vaginal delivery and to identify opportunities for preventing this cause of fecal incontinence in young women. METHODS We used baseline data from two groups of women who participated in the Childbirth and Pelvic Symptoms (CAPS) study: those women who delivered vaginally, either those with or those without a recogniz...

By perianal electrical stimulation and EMG recording from the external anal sphincter the anal reflex was constantly present in normal subjects. The latency decreased within certain limits with increasing stimulation to an average minimum latency of 50 ms (SD 10.5). There was no difference between the minimum latency in normal subjects and patients with suprasegmental lesions of the CNS. The la...

A main concern for women giving birth is the risk of obstetric anal sphincter injuries. In our department the incidence of sphincter injuries was around 8 % among vaginally delivering first time mothers. We aimed to halve the incidence to 4 % or less. A prospective interventional program was instituted. We implemented a hands-on technique with four elements in a bundle of care together with a c...

Internal anal sphincter activity has been studied in 84 patients with haemorrhoids and 40 asymptomatic subjects. Activity was estimated by measuring maximum resting anal pressure with a water filled anal balloon probe 7 mm in diameter connected to a strain gauge pressure transducer. There was greater activity of the internal sphincter in patients with haemorrhoids than in controls, but there wa...

The isolated internal anal sphincter from cats shows a myogenic spontaneous rhythmic activity. Basal tension and frequency of contraction waves from internal anal sphincter strips are inhibited by muscarinic and beta-adrenergic receptors and excited by alpha-adrenergic receptors. Isoprenaline in high doses had an alpha-adrenoceptor-stimulating activity in strips from the internal sphincter. The...

CC This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Figure 1. The low mean resting anal pressure (28 mmHg), maximum squeezing pressure (135 ...

An electrical stimulator has been devised to treat neurogenic faecal incontinence caused by pudendal nerve neuropathy and works on the basis of repeated stimulation of the pudendo-anal reflex arc. Although conduction in the pudendo-anal reflex arc may be prolonged, and is so in neurogenic faecal incontinence, it must be shown to be present before the method can be used. This stimulation results...