Intralesional photodynamic therapy, new technique for anal fistulas limiting potential lesions
Spanish medical magazine DiarioMedico.com collects in a report the work of Spanish surgeon Dr. Antonio Arroyo and his team at the General University Hospital of Elche (Alicante, Spain), in the investigation and application of a new treatment technique for anal fistulas using photodynamic therapy with INTERmedic’s Multidiode ™ 630 PDT laser.
Among the main advantages of this new technique are the patients’ cure rate – 80% according to the initial experience of Dr. Arroyo – and the lack of the complications caused by the common surgical treatment techniques for anal fistulas that usually cause injuries in the musculature of the anus and adjacent tissue. According to Dr. Arroyo in the report, these lesions “condemn the patient to global fecal incontinence rates of 10% to 20%, with recurrence rates of 20% to 40%.”
On the other hand, photodynamic therapy “is a safe and reproducible technique” in which “no side effects have been observed, except for mild pain in some patients,” Dr. Arroyo says. The data of this innovative technique, of which Elche Hospital is a pioneer, have been published in the prestigious medical publication Techniques of Coloproctology and have been awarded at the XXV International Conference on Coloproctology.
Click on the link to read the full article (in Spanish):
27-04-2017