ABSTRACT
An external thrombotic hemorrhoid is a very painful disease with a high incidence rate. The chief complaints encountered by the surgeon are protrusion and pain. However, because the spontaneous healing rate is very high, there is no consensus on whether conservative management or surgery is a more effective treatment policy. In an attempt to resolve this problem, we performed a clinical analysis of fifty patients with external thrombotic hemorrhoids who were treated by conservative management at Song-Do Colorectal Hospital from October 1996 to December 1996. We recorded the time required for the protrusion and the pain to disappear and performed manometry to check the sphincter pressure and tissue pathology to determine the pathogenesis of the external thrombotic hemorrhoid. The results are as follows: 1) Based on pathology, the cause of the external thrombotic hemorrhoids was venous thrombosis due to venous stasis, not a hematoma due to venous rupture. 2) Manometry showed that the resting sphincter pressure and the squeezing sphincter pressure for the patients with external thrombotic hemorrhoids was higher than those of the control group, which was the reason for the venous stasis. In conclusion, because an external thrombotic hemorrhoid is just a thrombosis due to venous stasis, the thrombosis can be improved by using methods such as a warm sitz bath and analgesics to decrease the sphincter pressure. Hence, conservative management should be the preferred treatment in almost all cases.