An anal fissure is a natural crack or tear in the skin of the anal canal. Anal fissures may be noticed by bright red anal bleeding on the toilet paper, sometimes in the toilet. If acute they may cause severe periodic pain after defecation but with chronic fissures pain intensity is often less. Anal fissures usually extend from the anal opening and are usually located posteriorly in the midline, probably because of the relatively unsupported nature of the anal wall in that location. Fissure depth may be superficial or sometimes down to the underlying sphincter muscle.
Most anal fissures are caused by stretching of the anal mucosa beyond its capability. For example, anal fissures are common in women after childbirth, after difficult bowel movements, and in infants following constipation.
Superficial or shallow anal fissures look much like a paper cut, and may be hard to detect upon visual inspection, they will generally self-heal within a couple of weeks. However, some anal fissures become chronic and deep and will not heal. The most common cause of non-healing is spasming of the internal anal sphincter muscle which results in impaired blood supply to the anal mucosa. The result is a non-healing ulcer, which may become infected by fecal bacteria.
For adults, the following may help prevent anal fissure:
Non-surgical treatment is recommended as first-line treatment of acute and chronic anal fissures. Customary treatments include warm sitz baths, topical anesthetics, high-fiber diet and stool softeners.
Surgical treatment, under general anaesthesia, was either anal stretch (Lord's operation) or lateral sphincterotomy where the internal anal sphincter muscle is incised. Both operations aim to decrease sphincter spasming and thereby restore normal blood supply to the anal mucosa. Surgical operations involve a general anaesthetic and can be painful postoperatively. Anal stretch is also associated with anal incontinence in a small proportion of cases and thus sphincterotomy is the operation of choice.
A new medical/surgical development came in 1993 when researchers reported injecting botulinum toxin into the anal sphincter to relax the sphincter and promote fissure healing.
Local application of medications to relax the sphincter muscle, thus allowing the healing to proceed, was first proposed in 1994 with nitroglycerine ointment, and then calcium channel blockers with in 1999 nifedipine ointment, and the following year with topical diltiazem. Branded preparations are now available of topical nitroglycerine ointment (Rectogesic as 0.2% in Australia and 0.4% in UK), topical nifedipine 0.3% with lidocaine 1.5% ointment (Antrolin in Italy since April 2004) and diltiazem 2% (Anoheal in UK, although still in Phase III development). A common side effect drawback of nitroglycerine ointment is headache, caused by systemic absorption of the drug, which limits patient acceptability.
A combined surgical and pharmacological treatment, administered by colorectal surgeons, is direct injection of Botulinum toxin (Botox) into the anal sphincter to relax it. This treatment was first investigated in 1993. Combination of medical therapies may offer up to 98% cure rates.
Surgical intervention may be required for persisting deep anal fissures unresponsive to the above conservative measures. Despite their high success rate (~95%), they are used only after medical treatment has failed due to their potential complications. These include general risks from anesthesia, infection and anal leakage (fecal incontinence). Surgical procedures include:
Lateral Internal Sphincterotomy (LIS) is the surgical procedure of choice for anal fissures due to its simplicity and its high success rate (~95%). In this procedure the Internal Anal Sphincter is partially divided in order to reduce spasming and thus improve the blood supply to the perianal area. This improvement in the blood supply helps to heal the fissure, and the weakening of the sphincter is also believed to reduce the potential for recurrence.
LIS does, however, have a number of potential side effects including problems with incision site healing and incontinence to flatus and faeces (some surveys of surgical results suggest incontinence rates of up to 36%).
Anal dilation, or stretching of the anal canal, (Lord's operation) has fallen out of favour in recent years, primarily due to the perceived unacceptably high incidence of fecal incontinence. In addition, anal stretching can increase the rate of flatus incontinence.
In the early 1990s however Norman Sohn and Michael A. Weinstein of Somerset Surgical Associates pioneered a repeatable method of anal dilation which proved to be very effective and showed a very low incidence of side effects. Since then at least one other controlled, randomized study has shown there to be little difference in healing rates and complications between controlled anal dilation and LIS, whilst another has again shown high success rates with anal dilation coupled with low incidence of side effects.
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