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Anal endosonography: which endoprobe?

Maria Papachrysostomou, MD S. D. Pye, PhD ^* S. R. Wild, DMRD, FRCR, FRCPEd and A. N. Smith, MD, FRCSEd, FRCPEd

Department of Surgery, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK ^* Department of Medical Physics, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK Department of Radiology, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

Anal endosonography is a simple, minimally invasive technique that can be used to visualize the anal sphincters and can be advantageous in evaluating the anorectum. The first ultrasonographic studies of the human intestinal wall thickness were made many years ago (Wild, 1950). Until recently, technical shortcomings of the equipment have prevented the clinical use of ultrasound as a means of imaging the anal sphincters; so disruption of a sphincter was determined from clinical examination, pressure studies and by concentric electromyogram mapping. Modern endoprobes give highresolution ultrasound images of the separate sphincter muscles (Law & Bartram, 1989).

Key Words: Anal endosonography • External and internal anal sphincters

Received for publication July 10, 1991. Revision received October 14, 1991. Accepted for publication October 25, 1991.

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