Background: Anal fissure is one of the most common anorectal conditions encountered in clinical practice. Most patients experience anal pain with defecation and minor bright red rectal bleeding, allowing a focused history to direct the evaluation.
Methods: A systematic medical literature search of NIH, Pubmed, and MEDLINE using the search terms anal fissure, sphincterotomy, anal surgery and anal fissure medical therapy. English language was not a restriction. Cited references were used to find additional studies.
Results: No single treatment is the best choice for all patients. Because pharmacological therapy is not associated with permanent alterations in continence, a trial of either a topical sphincter relaxant or botulin toxin injection, along with adequate fluid and fibre intake, is a reasonable option. However, because pharmacological therapy has lower healing and higher relapse rates, surgery can be offered in the first instance to patients without incontinence risk factors who have severe, unrelenting pain and are willing to accept a small risk of incontinence, for the highest likelihood of prompt healing and the lowest risk of recurrence.
Conclusions: Both non-operative and operative approaches currently exist for the management of anal fissure. Improved non-surgical therapies may continue to lessen the role of sphincter-dividing surgery in future.