Treatment of anal fissure by lateral subcutaneous sphincterotomy should be under general anaesthesia.
Seventy-one consecutive patients with acute anal fissure were randomly allocated to treatment by lateral subcutaneous sphincterotomy under either local anaesthesia (n = 34) or general anaesthesia (n = 37). Four months after treatment there were 18 patients with a recurrent or persistent anal fissure, 17 had had local anaesthesia (50 per cent) and only one had a recurrent fissure after general anaesthesia (3 per cent). These results indicate that if lateral subcutaneous sphincterotomy is used for treatment of anal fissure the operation should be performed under a general anaesthetic.
D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D001003:Anal Canal / Q000601:surgery*; D000768:Anesthesia, General; D000772:Anesthesia, Local; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005260:Female; D005401:Fissure in Ano / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008722:Methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D011897:Random Allocation; D012008:Recurrence