What is the success rate of anal fistula surgery

Anal fistula is a very common disease. It not only causes physical pain to patients, but also seriously affects their life and work. Anal fistula has a relatively high incidence in recent years. Anal fistula patients usually experience discomfort symptoms such as abscesses, itching and pain around the anus. Generally, surgery is required for treatment. However, many people are worried that the success rate of anal fistula surgery is not high. So what is the success rate of anal fistula surgery?

What is the success rate of anal fistula surgery?

First of all, since anal fistula rarely invades people's rectum, its overall harm to the human body is not too serious. However, since it seriously affects the patient's daily life, it should still be taken seriously by people. Anal fistulas usually have internal openings that often occur near the dentate line of the human body, while external openings often appear around the perianal skin of the body. Therefore, the entire fistula wall will gradually become thicker and composed of fibrous tissue, and a layer of granulation tissue will be added inside, which will not heal for a long time.

Moreover, due to the location of the occurrence near the anus, the particularity of physiological needs such as excretion in life and the pathogenesis, anal fistula has become one of the private diseases with a incidence rate second only to hemorrhoids. The general population affected is mainly young and middle-aged men, which has led to the medical theory that it may be related to the secretion of men's sebaceous glands, because sebaceous glands are a target organ of sex hormones.

In terms of treatment, as mentioned above, it can be seen that anal fistula is a disease that is difficult or impossible to heal on its own, so Western medicine advocates that surgical treatment must be performed. Although there are many treatment methods, such as the thread hanging therapy which is simple, quick and has less bleeding, anal fistula incision, and anal fistula resection which completely removes the fistula until the healthy anal tissue is exposed, etc., the main treatment principle is to completely cut open the fistula and, if necessary, remove the scar tissue around the fistula, so that the wound can heal gradually from the base upwards.

Therefore, in terms of treatment effect, surgical treatment is relatively the most thorough method of treating anal fistula, and the success rate is generally high. However, this also depends on the symptoms and specific circumstances of the patient with anal fistula. Generally speaking, if the patient has a simple anal fistula, recurrence is rare after surgery. If a more complicated operation is required, then if the anal fistula structure is not removed thoroughly enough, the chance of recurrence is still relatively high.