Outpatient hand held manometry: comparison of techniques.
OBJECTIVE
Anorectal manometry is an established important investigation in a number of disorders. The specialist ano-rectal laboratory is not always available, and a hand held manometer may be a useful tool in the outpatient setting to avoid an unnecessary visit to the anorectal physiology laboratory. Our aims were to determine whether the hand held manometer was as reliable as the standard system used in the anorectal laboratory, and to correctly compare the results from these two different techniques.


METHODS
24 patients visiting the Anorectal physiology laboratory were studies. Resting pressure, squeeze and cough pressures were recorded using the single channel hand held solid pressure transducer and with the dual channel pressure transducer MRP2 recorder. The first measurement by each method is used to illustrate the comparison of methods, the second measurement being used to study repeatability.


RESULTS
The two methods correlate well for resting and squeeze pressures (Spearman coefficient with P < 0.01 for both) The level of agreement between the two methods was good for resting pressure recordings with a mean difference of 15 cm H2O. The same cannot be said for squeeze and cough pressures. Repeatability of both methods was good with mean differences on repeated recordings near zero.


CONCLUSIONS
The hand held manometer is as repeatable as the laboratory but as some discrepancy occurs between the two methods they are not interchangeable. Thus the hand held manometer used alone in the outpatients Department is a useful screening and research tool.
Bollard
R C
RC
Academic Surgical Unit, University of Hull, Castle Hill Hospital, Hull, UK.
Gardiner
A
A
Duthie
G S
GS