Caudal anaesthesia in the clinical assessment of painful anal lesions.

The clinical evaluation of patients who present with painful anal conditions is often incomplete because of the need to avoid distress that digital examination engenders. Diagnosis is then based on the history and other findings on clinical examination. This is associated with a risk of missed and delayed diagnosis, delay in the initiation of appropriate therapy and the use of alternative investigation modalities which may not be necessary if full clinical evaluation had been done. In this communication, the experience with the use of caudal anaesthesia in the outpatient and ward setting to evaluate painful anal conditions is presented. The result shows that the technique is safe, and allows the immediate and complete evaluation of these conditions. The anaesthesia is short lasting and no morbidity was observed in this study.