A Study on Cases with Anal Complaints: Hemorrhoids or Cancer?

The number of patients who visited our hospital with anal complaints was 484 cases over two years. Their main complaints, examinations performed, diagnosis and treatment are described in this report. Fourhundred and sixty-two cases were diagnosed as hemorrhoid, 83.1 % of which as internal hemorrhoid. A radical operation was performed for only 19.3%of them and the remaining patients were treated conservatively. Sixty-three cases were diagnosed as colon polyps. Fifty-five cases of them had concomitant hemorrhoids and two cases hemorrhoids and colon cancers. Six cases had polyps without any other diseases. Eleven cases (2.3%) were diagnosed as colon cancers. Chief complaints were anal bleeding and abnormal bowel movement in most of the cancer cases. Five of them were male and six were female, of which seven cases were rectal cancer and four were sigmoidal cancer. No cancer was observed proximal to the descending colon. Radical operation could be performed in only seven of them (63.6%) . These results show that sigmoidal scopy should be performed to find cancers in the colon, especially rectal and sigmoidal cancer, for patients with any anal complaints.