Newswise — In the January 2019 issue of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum, Christie Cauley and her coauthors from the Massachusetts General Hospital studied over 900 patients with fecal incontinence. Nearly 70% of these individuals reported that they also suffered from constipation. Patients were asked to complete questionnaires about the severity of their loss or lack of bowel control, regarding their quality of life, as well as questions pertaining to symptoms of bladder, bowel and vaginal prolapse and how these interfered with activities of daily living. They also underwent detailed anal muscle and pelvic floor evaluation.
The authors found that patients with constipation and fecal incontinence were younger and more likely to have co-existing irritable bowel syndrome compared to patients with incontinence but without constipation. They also had less severe symptoms of fecal incontinence but a worse quality of life, higher rates of pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, pelvic pain and abdominal pressure.
Dr. Cauley stated “co-existing pathology, including pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence, worsened fecal incontinence quality of life scores even further.” The authors stress that patients with fecal incontinence with constipation need to be treated differently from those with fecal incontinence but without constipation.
Citation: Cauley CE, Savitt LR, Weinstein M, et al. Quality-of-life comparisons of two fecal incontience phenotypes. Dis Colon Rectum 2019;62:63-70.
RSS