Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. Feb 15, 2016; 7(1): 59-71
Published online Feb 15, 2016. doi: 10.4291/wjgp.v7.i1.59
Faecal incontinence: Current knowledges and perspectives
Alban Benezech, Michel Bouvier, Véronique Vitton
Alban Benezech, Michel Bouvier, Véronique Vitton, Service de Gastroentérologie, Hôpital Nord, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, 13915 Marseille, France
Michel Bouvier, Véronique Vitton, Plateforme d’interface clinique, CRN2M CNRS UMR 7286, Aix-Marseille Université, 13915 Marseille, France
Author contributions: All the authors equally contributed to the preparation of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Correspondence to: Dr. Veronique Vitton, MD, PhD, Service de Gastroentérologie, Hôpital Nord, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, Cedex 20, 13915 Marseille, France. vittonv@yahoo.com
Telephone: +33-04-91965598 Fax: +33-04-91965550
Received: June 16, 2015
Peer-review started: June 20, 2015
First decision: August 22, 2015
Revised: September 21, 2015
Accepted: December 9, 2015
Article in press: December 11, 2015
Published online: February 15, 2016
Processing time: 229 Days and 11.6 Hours
Abstract

Faecal incontinence (FI) is a disabling and frequent symptom since its prevalence can vary between 5% and 15% of the general population. It has a particular negative impact on quality of life. Many tools are currently available for the treatment of FI, from conservative measures to invasive surgical treatments. The conservative treatment may be dietetic measures, various pharmacological agents, anorectal rehabilitation, posterior tibial nerve stimulation, and transanal irrigation. If needed, patients may have miniinvasive approaches such as sacral nerve modulation or antegrade irrigation. In some cases, a surgical treatment is proposed, mainly external anal sphincter repair. Although these different therapeutic options are available, new techniques are arriving allowing new hopes for the patients. Moreover, most of them are non-invasive such as local application of an α1-adrenoceptor agonist, stem cell injections, rectal injection of botulinum toxin, acupuncture. New more invasive techniques with promising results are also coming such as anal magnetic sphincter and antropylorus transposition. This review reports the main current available treatments of FI and the developing therapeutics tools.

Keywords: Faecal incontinence; Treatment

Core tip: Faecal incontinence (FI) is a disabling and frequent symptom. Many tools are available for its treatment from conservative measures to invasive surgical treatments. Although different therapeutic options are currently available, new techniques are arriving allowing new hopes for the patients. This review reports the main current available treatments of FI and the developing therapeutics tools.