A study on management of hemorrhoids: Comparison between conservative management and injection sclerotherapy

Background: Hemorrhoidal disease is one of the most common anorectal conditions encountered in daily practice for centuries. Conservative management of hemorrhoids (with oral diosmin, calcium dobesilate cream local application) and injection sclerotherapy with 3% polidocanol-both are very commonly practiced, cost effective, and outpatient department-based management of hemorrhoids which bear rare adverse effects. Comparative efficacy of injection sclerotherapy and conservative management in cases of hemorrhoids is still confusing and contradictory to each other according to different studies. Aims and Objectives: This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness between conservative management of hemorrhoids and injection sclerotherapy. Materials and Methods: This institution-based experimental study done over 74 patients of first- and second-degree internal hemorrhoids. Thirty-seven patients were randomly selected and managed with conservative management, and the rest with injection sclerotherapy. Treatment responses were assessed after 3 weeks and in unsatisfactory responses, treatment was repeated for another 3 weeks. Reassessment was done after 6 weeks and 6 months. Results: This study demonstrated that both injection sclerotherapy and conservative management had improved per rectal bleeding after 3 and 6 weeks of treatment, but the former had a significant edge over the counterpart after 6 months of treatment (56.8% vs. 35.1%, P = 0.002). In case of reduction of hemorrhoidal mass – injection sclerotherapy had significantly better outcome in all the follow-up visits, that is, 3 weeks (54.1% vs. 13.5%, P = 0.001), 6 weeks (70.3% vs. 35.1%, P = 0.008) and 6 months (59.5% vs. 27.0%, P = 0.003). Injection sclerotherapy had superior overall treatment outcome after 6 weeks of treatment (73% vs. 45.9%, P = 0.04) and long-term periods (56.85% vs. 27%, P < 0.01). Conclusion: Injection sclerotherapy shows significantly better and long-lasting improvement in symptomatic hemorrhoids in comparison to conservative management which is mainly able to limit per rectal bleeding only for a short period of time.

Hazardous alcohol use in rural southern India: Nature, prevalence and risk factors.

Background. There is a dearth of data on the hazardous use of alcohol in rural India. Methods. We examined the nature, prevalence and factors associated with hazardous use of alcohol among men in a rural community in southern India. We used stratified sampling to select subjects from the Kaniyambadi block and employed ‘AUDIT’, a standard instrument, to assess the use of alcohol. Results. The prevalence of life-time use, use in the past year and hazardous use of alcohol was 46.7%, 34.8% and 14.2%, respectively. Using Indian made foreign liquor (OR 20.51; 95% CI 8.81–47.75) and living in a village which brewed illicit alcohol (OR 2.82; 95% CI 1.39–5.72) were risk factors for hazardous use while education (OR 0.39; 95% CI 0.21–0.72) was protective. These factors remained significantly associated with hazardous use after adjusting for age and education using logistic regression. Conclusion. The relationship between the availability of illicit and commercial alcohol and its hazardous use suggests the need for an alcohol policy which takes into account health and economic issues and also implements the law to prevent the negative impact of problem drinking.

Prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria and its consequences in pregnancy in a rural community of Bangladesh.

This was a cross-sectional followed by cohort type of study conducted among the pregnant mothers of second trimester in the rural areas of Rajshahi district. Initially 1800 pregnant mothers ofsecond trimester were selected from 18 unions applying 2-stage random sampling. A total of 216 pregnant mothers with asymptomatic bacteriuria were paired among the rest of the healthy pregnant mothers (without bacteriuria) on the basis of age, gravida and economic status for cohort study to relate asymptomatic bacteriuria with the incidence of symptomatic bacteriuria, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (HDP) and pre-term delivery. The matched paired pregnant mothers werefollowed monthly interval up to delivery. The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria was 12% among the pregnant mothers in rural Rajshahi. E. Coli was the commonest causative agent of both asymptomatic and symptomatic bacteriuria. The results of this study suggest that asymptomatic bacteriuria were more prone to develop symptomatic bacteriuria, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and pre-term delivery than that of the healthy mothers (without bacteriuria). Screening of bacteriuria in pregnancy and proper treatment must be considered as an essential part of antenatal care in this rural community.