The Role of Traditional Acupuncture in Patients with Fecal Incontinence-Mini-Review.

OBJECTIVE: Fecal incontinence affects up to 15% of the general population, with higher rates of incidence among women and the elderly. Acupuncture is an old practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine that might be used to treat fecal incontinence. The aim of this mini review was to assess the effect of acupuncture for fecal incontinence. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, PubMed, and CENTRAL electronic databases were searched until August 2020. The following keywords were used: acupuncture, electroacupuncture, moxibustion, fecal incontinence, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and bowel dysfunction. In addition, references were searched. Five studies (two randomized controlled trials), out of 52,249 predefined publications after an electronic database search, were included into the review. RESULTS: Overall, 143 patients were included. All studies report significant improvements in continence, although they all apply different acupuncture regimens. Randomized controlled trials show significant differences in experimental groups treated with acupuncture in improving continence. Significant improvement in quality of life scores was reported. In addition, improvement in fecal continence remained significantly improved after 18 months of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Acupuncture is a promising treatment alternative for fecal incontinence. Based on small, low-quality studies, it might be a safe, inexpensive, and efficient method. However, more high-quality studies are needed in order to apply this treatment technique routinely.

Late gastrointestinal toxicity after radiotherapy for rectal cancer: a systematic review.

PURPOSE: Although the multimodal cancer treatment techniques have greatly improved over the years, irradiation-induced late gastrointestinal toxicity remains a great concern as it may highly affect the quality of life of a patient. The aim of this study was to define the prevalence of late gastrointestinal toxicities. METHODS: Electronic databases of Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, CENTRAL and PubMed were searched until September 2019. We used the following keywords: radiotherapy, radiation therapy, irradiation, rectal cancer, gastrointestinal toxicity, adverse effects, late effects, pelvic radiation and pelvic radiation disease. RESULTS: Nine studies were included into this review out of 4785 that were preidentified as potentially relevant. Overall prevalence of severe (Grade 3 or higher) late irradiation-induced gastrointestinal toxicities was up to 19%. Most frequent toxicities of any grade were reported to be diarrhoea (up to 35%), faecal incontinence (22%), incontinence to gas (71%), rectal bleeding (9%), rectal pain (13%) and obstruction (7.4%). Preoperative treatment approaches and more advance radiotherapy techniques such as intensity-modulated and image-guided radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) turn out to result in lower late gastrointestinal toxicity rates. CONCLUSION: After great improvements in rectal cancer treatment, late gastrointestinal toxicity after radiotherapy is experienced less frequent and less severe; however, it remains a great concern associated with worse quality of life.