Therapeutic and Diagnostic Guidelines
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 7, 2021; 27(33): 5460-5473
Published online Sep 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i33.5460
Guidelines on postoperative magnetic resonance imaging in patients operated for cryptoglandular anal fistula: Experience from 2404 scans
Pankaj Garg, Baljit Kaur, Vipul D Yagnik, Sushil Dawka, Geetha R Menon
Pankaj Garg, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Garg Fistula Research Institute, Panchkula 134113, Haryana, India
Pankaj Garg, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Indus International Hospital, Mohali 140201, Punjab, India
Baljit Kaur, Department of Radiology, SSRD Magnetic Resonance Imaging Institute, Chandigarh 160011, Chandigarh, India
Vipul D Yagnik, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology, Nishtha Surgical Hospital and Research Center, Patan 384265, Gujarat, India
Sushil Dawka, Department of Surgery, SSR Medical College, Belle Rive, Mauritius
Geetha R Menon, Department of Statistics, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi 110029, New Delhi, India
Author contributions: Garg P conceived and designed the study, collected, and analyzed the data, revised the data, finally approved and submitted the manuscript (guarantor of the review); Kaur B and Yagnik VD collected, and analyzed the data, revised the data, finally approved and submitted the manuscript; Dawka S critically analyzed the data, reviewed and edited the manuscript, finally approved and submitted the manuscript; Menon GR analyzed the data, revised the data, finally approved and submitted the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors, Garg P, Kaur B, Yagnik VD, Dawka S and Menon GR, have any conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Pankaj Garg, MBBS, MS, Associate Professor, Surgeon, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Garg Fistula Research Institute, House No 1042, Sector-15, Panchkula 134113, Haryana, India. drgargpankaj@yahoo.com
Received: May 8, 2021
Peer-review started: May 8, 2021
First decision: June 12, 2021
Revised: June 12, 2021
Accepted: August 5, 2021
Article in press: August 5, 2021
Published online: September 7, 2021
Processing time: 117 Days and 16.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays a pivotal role in the preoperative management of anal fistulas, but there are little data on postoperative MRI. There are no existing guidelines available to the operating surgeon and the radiologist regarding the challenges faced, utility, timing, and other aspects of MRI interpretation of anal fistulas in the postoperative period. This is the first paper on this theme and presents the first guidelines to be formulated for postoperative MRI in anal fistula management. These guidelines are based on an extensive experience of interpreting 2404 MRI scans in 1719 patients, including 685 postoperative MRIs in 411 patients.