Effectiveness of argon plasma coagulation in the treatment of chronic actinic proc.

Introduction: There are two kinds of actinic proctitis--one is acute and self-limited, and lasts about 3 months; the other is chronic and develops months to years after radiation therapy. The incidence of chronic actinic proctitis is about 5-20% of radiated prostate tumors.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of argon plasma coagulation in the treatment of chronic actinic proctitis.

Material And Method: A retrospective search of patients with the diagnosis of actinic proctitis. The number of argon plasma coagulation therapies needed to achieve the symptom resolution was analyzed.

Results: We found 22 patients with a diagnosis of actinic proctitis. Nineteen were males (86.7%) and three (13.6%) were females. Nineteen patients (86.4%) had a diagnosis of prostate adenocarcinoma, one had a diagnosis of squamous-cell cervix carcinoma (4.5%), and two had a diagnosis of endometrial carcinoma (9.1%). The mean number of coagulation sessions needed for symptom resolution was 2.58 (absolute range 1-7) with a median of 2 sessions.

Conclusion: Multiple treatments are described in the literature. None of them have shown promising results. Our results suggest that argon plasma coagulation is effective in the treatment of this condition, and achieves a rapid and sustained response with few sessions and a good safety profile.