Objectives: Anal fistula is a common condition in surgical practice. Despite its benign course, treatment is difficult, especially in complicated fistulas, and there is no standard treatment method. Anal fistula surgery can cause recurrence or continence disturbances. Ideal treatment should provide low incontinence and recurrence rates. Conventional techniques have a variable success rate; together with the potential risks, the outcome depends on the anatomy of the patient and the fistula and the wishes of the patient. For anal fistulas, various new procedures must be applied in animals to minimize the potential risk to humans. Steam ablation (SA) is an application like laser ablation, which is mainly used in the treatment of varicose veins in the lower extremities in humans. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy of SA treatment in an experimentally created anal fistula model in rats.Methods: Two fistula tracts were formed in the anus of 16 Wistar Albino rats. After waiting for 30 days, SA was applied to one of the tracts while the other was left untreated as control. The animals were euthanized 60 days after the start of the experiment and the samples were analyzed by the pathologist by removing the perianal regions. P<0.05 value was considered significant in the results.Results: About 18.8% of the study group completely recovered, 31.3% moderately recovered, 50% did not recover, 0% of the control group completely recovered, 37.5% moderately recovered, and 62.5% did not recover, and there was no statistically significant difference between them (p>0.05).
Conclusion:In this study, where we evaluated the effectiveness of SA in the treatment of fistulas created in rats, we compared the treatment group with the control group. Improvement in the SA group was greater than in the control group, but there was no statistically significant difference between the groups.