Outcomes of Rubber Band Ligation in Haemorrhoids Among Outdoor Patients

Out of all anorectal diseases, haemorrhoids are the most common benign disease. Haemorrhoids can be treated by various treatment modalities like medical, surgical, and instrumental. Instrumental treatment comprises rubber band ligation, sclerotherapy, and infrared and laser therapy. Out of these modalities, the rubber band ligation technique is the least invasive with a reduced rate of complications and without the need for hospitalization. Hence, the current study was conducted to evaluate the outcomes with respect to the effectiveness of rubber band ligation in grade II and III internal haemorrhoids along with the magnitude and pattern of post-procedural complications.

This is a prospective observational study, conducted on a sample of 100 patients who presented to our outdoor patient's department and were diagnosed with haemorrhoids, either grade II or III. All enrolled study patients having haemorrhoids were banded with rubber band by Barron Ligator (Precise, Canada) with local anaesthetic agent xylocaine jelly in a single session. All patients were followed on the 10th day, 1st month, and 6th month after the procedure to assess symptomatic improvement. The endpoint of this study is to know the effectiveness of rubber band ligation in different clinical parameters such as post-ligation pain or discomfort, the requirement of analgesic, any complication, and time off work.

Out of 100 patients 17 patients had grade II and 83 patients had grade III haemorrhoids. Among them, 89% were symptomatically relieved after rubber band ligation whereas the rest 11% of patients had residual symptoms.

Thus, we conclude that rubber band ligation for grade II and III haemorrhoids is simple, safer, easy-to-perform daycare procedure with lesser requirements of analgesics and without any need for anaesthesia.