Triple-target treatment versus low-frequency electrostimulation for anal incontinence: a randomized, controlled trial.

Background: In the nonsurgical treatment of anal incontinence, the combination of amplitude-modulated medium-frequency stimulation and electromyographic biofeedback (EMG-BF), known as triple-target treatment (3T), is superior to EMG-BF alone. The aim of this trial is to compare 3T with the standard treatment, low-frequency stimulation (LFS).

Methods: 80 patients with anal incontinence of Grade I or higher who presented to physicians or centers specialized in coloproctology were enrolled in this multicenter randomized trial with blinded observer.

Fecal incontinence: part 4 of a series of articles on incontinence.

Background: The aging of the population will make fecal incontinence an increasingly important socioeconomic problem in the coming decades. Already today, the cost to society of treating incontinence with inserts, diapers, and closed systems exceeds the total cost of all cardiac and anti-inflammatory medications.

Methods: This article is based on a selective review of the literature and on clinical experience.

Triple target treatment (3T) is more effective than biofeedback alone for anal incontinence: the 3T-AI study.

Purpose: The efficacy of EMG-biofeedback and low-frequency electrical stimulation for the treatment of anal incontinence has not been proven. Our purpose was to evaluate a novel therapeutic concept, termed triple target treatment, which combines amplitude-modulated medium-frequency stimulation and EMG-biofeedback.

Methods: Patients with anal incontinence were randomly assigned to the triple target regimen or EMG-biofeedback alone for a 9-month treatment period in a multicenter randomized clinical trial with blinded observers (ClincialTrials.

Anal cancer treated with radio-chemotherapy: correlation between length of treatment interruption and outcome.

Aim: The purpose of this study was the evaluation of the feasibility and outcome of definitive radio-chemotherapy without split-course technique but with individualised short treatment interruption in anal cancer patients.

Method: Between 1993 and 2008, 101 patients with anal cancer were treated in our institution with definitive radio-chemotherapy with individualised short treatment interruptions. Treatment was halted independent of dose in case of acute grade 3 toxicities and started again until improvement.

[Outpatient surgery in proctology].

Proctological surgery can be carried out increasingly on an outpatient basis and thus more cost-effectively. The reasons for this are, in addition to modern anaesthetic procedures, short operation times and low complication rates in numerous proctological operations. Fissurectomies, individual haemorrhoidectomies, operations on uncomplicated fistulae and benign anal tumours only rarely need to be carried out nowadays under inpatient conditions.