Analysis of Rectoanal Inhibitory Reflex in Cases of Chronic Constipation

Abstract

This study was carried out on twenty patients suffering from chronic idiopathic constipation. Ten healthy volunteers with completely normal bowel habits were taken as a control group. Thorough history taking, clinical and endoscopic examination as well as barium studies were made for all the patients for assessment and, also, to exclude any pathological lesion that may be blamed as a cause of constipation.

Colonic transit time (CTT) was studied and its results were used to classify the patients into two groups; patients with normal colonic transit time (65 %) and was designed as group A, and patients with delayed colonic transit time (35 %) designed as group B. Anal motility studies were performed in both groups of patients and the control one. The study included resting anal pressure (RAP), maximum squeeze pressure (MSP). resting VSI and maximum squeeze VSL highest mean resting pressure point and its distance from the anal verge. The study revealed significant increase in the MSP in patients of group B compared to group A and control group.