Re: The role of defecography in clinical practice.
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Dynamic proctography is a radiographic procedure that has become widely used in the evaluation of pelvic floor function. The anorectal angle (ARA) is one parameter which is usually quantified during this examination. To determine the accuracy with which this measurement can be made, three physicians independently measured the resting and squeezing ARAs of 22 women. The coefficient of variation and the kappa statistic were used to describe the degree of agreement among the three examiners. These analyses revealed poor agreement among examiners for all 22 patients taken as individuals, (kappa less than or equal to 0.40; mean coefficient of variation at rest = 18 percent; mean coefficient during squeezing = 21 percent). These results suggest that measurements of ARAs will vary among examiners for any particular patient, even though individual examiners may demonstrate consistency in recording ARA data. There is wide interobserver variation in the measurement of the ARA from lateral radiographs, making quantification an exercise of only limited clinical value.
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Dynamic rectal examination (DRE), first described in 1952, is becoming more widely used in the dynamic evaluation of pelvic floor and anorectal motility disorders. It is a minimally invasive investigation which is well tolerated by patients and provides information about the anosphincteric, puborectal and levator muscle in addition to insight in rectal function and structure. DRE is the only investigation of anorectal function that can give detailed anatomical information such as the presence of a rectocele, an enterocele and an intussusception. DRE should be performed in a quiet environment with a minimum number of investigators present. Any technique which attempts to study the defecatory mechanism must be a compromise since the patient is aware of being studied. In order to defecate on command the radiologist must make the patient comfortable before starting the investigative procedures to avoid any possible psychological inhibition. We have not encountered any failures in this regard. The relative value of the radiological findings with respect to symptoms and complaints is insufficiently known. This has been the main incentive to design carefully and carry out a large prospective critical evaluation of various aspects of DRE in particular the correlation with objective findings and symptoms. Moreover an assessment has been made of its overall clinical utility (Wiersma, 1994). It is very likely that DRE is both investigator- and technique-dependent. To ensure that the study is as physiological as possible the contrast medium used to fill the rectum needs to be semi-solid and malleable equivalent in consistency to a normal faecal bolus. For proper anatomical studies in females vaginal opacification is mandatory. The acceptance of vaginal contrast was good. Only 4% of the female patients preferred not to have the vaginal application of contrast. The technique of DRE when performed with small bowel and vaginal opacification provides a sensitive and objective method of detecting enteroceles. A substantial number of female patients related the onset of their complaints to hysterectomy. In female patients with constipation there was a significantly higher incidence of enteroceles in patients with a hysterectomy compared to the group of females without hysterectomy. Because of these findings a series of pre- and postoperative DREs in hysterectomy patients are on their way in our institute. Unlike a rectocele which is usually most obvious during defecation, enteroceles are sometimes appreciated only with repeated straining after evacuation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Anorectal manometric and electromyographic studies assess anorectal and pelvic floor neuromuscular disorders and can help in the diagnosis and management of incontinence, prolapse, megarectum, and other functional anorectal disorders. These studies can assess preoperative and postoperative anorectal function and help in the differential diagnosis of anorectal disorders, and thus they assist the surgeon in carrying out rational therapy.
When using defaecography as a radiological tool for diagnosing the anorectal function in female patients, the ovaries are inevitably directly exposed. With the aim of minimising the ovarian dose applied both the area-dose product and the surface dose above the ovaries were measured during investigations of female patients with a digital C-arm unit. These values were converted into ovarian doses using tissue-air ratios. From the surface dose measured with TLD-100 a mean ovarian dose of 15.6 +/- 8.6 mGy was derived. The contributions of screening and film exposures were similar. A reduction of screening time by 10 seconds or omission of 60 film exposures results in a decrease of ovarian dose by values between 0.7 and 2 mGy. Employing a greater focus-skin distance during defaecography, however, made it possible to reduce the ovarian dose by 26%.
A new diagnostic method is presented as "Double-Exposure Defaecography". Its advantage is the reliable evaluation of functional parameters of defaecography without the aid of obligatory auxiliary lines in relation to the drawing of the relevant skeletal parts. Less display and effort are needed than in cineradiography. The so called pinching test allows functional, quantitative examination of musculus puborectalis. The evaluation is performed on double-exposed x-ray films. Besides a group of patients suffering from anorectal incontinence and difficulties in defaecation (n = 42), a group of patients (n = 21) with smooth-muscular perineal sphincter replacement was controlled by double-exposure defaecography. This fairly new method of surgery restores continence in 80% of the cases.
Forty seven healthy young volunteers underwent defecographic examination to determine the range of normal findings. Normality was shown to encompass radiological features often considered pathological. These features included broad ranges of anorectal angle and pelvic floor descent which overlap with reported pathological states. Furthermore, the formation of rectocoeles during defecation was a very common finding in women. Finally, a subgroup of the volunteers had marginal anorectal function. The marginal anorectal function and certain radiological findings such as rectocoeles or intussusceptions may predispose to later problems, or contribute to clinical problems when combined with other factors such as dietary fibre deficiency. The radiological findings raise a number of questions with respect to different aspects of the functioning of the continence and defecation mechanisms.
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The contribution of evacuation proctography (EP) to the evaluation of pelvic prolapse was assessed in 74 consecutive patients. A rectocele was demonstrated in 73 patients (99%); large rectoceles frequently showed barium trapping, but there was no correlation between these findings and rectal symptoms. An enterocele was detected at evacuation proctography in 13 patients (18%) (including two enteroceles seen only retrospectively), and a sigmoidocele was shown in four patients (5%). Physical examination resulted in detection of only seven enteroceles and of none of the sigmoidoceles. In 48 patients (65%), additional findings were evident at EP, including excessive pelvic floor descent, anal incontinence, rectal intussusception, and spastic pelvic floor. These data suggest that EP is particularly useful in the preoperative evaluation of pelvic prolapse if the patient has anorectal symptoms or is at risk for an enterocele. EP contributes to surgical planning by enabling identification of clinically unsuspected enteroceles and sigmoidoceles and coexistent disorders of rectal evacuation.
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