Offering HeLP to work out the optimum treatment for haemorrhoidal disease

Excerpt

Haemorrhoidal disease is a gold mine for research and innovation. It is a very common condition, with a large population of potential study recruits. And, as yet, there is no perfect intervention—there is a gap in the market. The perfect surgical intervention should be appropriate for all grades of haemorrhoid, be easy to learn and perform, have durable clinical effectiveness, be tolerable to the patient, cause no harm, and be cost-effective. No intervention fully meets these criteria. Cheap and easy office procedures such as rubber band ligation may fail due to poor efficacy—recurrence or residual symptoms can occur in up to 50% of patients after a single procedure [1]. In contrast, more efficacious procedures such as conventional haemorrhoidectomy may be painful and often result in prolonged recovery [2]. Hence, a plethora of innovative techniques, in the last 20 years, is striving for this ‘perfection’. …