Adnan Aziz, Zahid Mehmood, Shahid Rasul, Asadullah Khan.
Cost effective Band Ligation of Hemorrhoids.
J Surg Pak Jan ;9(3):14-7.

Objectives: The objective of the study was to find out the cost effectiveness of band ligation for the treatment of haemorrhoids. Design: It was a comparative study. Place & Duration: The study was conducted in Surgical Unit-I, Ward-3, of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, Karachi, Pakistan, between December, 2002 to December, 2003. Patients And Methods: The study included eighty patients of 21 and 3`1 degree internal hemorrhoids. Out of eighty, forty were treated with bands made from Foley`s catheter (F-bands) and rest of forty were treated with commercially available regular bands (R-bands). Results: Forty patients who had ligation with F - bands, thirty-eight came for follow up. Twenty-five patients did not have any problems and made full recovery. Five experienced severe post-banding pain on the following day, one had post procedure bleeding, two had difficulty in opening bowels and five required rebanding due to slipping of the band. Other group of patients who had ligation with R - bands, thirty seven were available for follow up. Twenty six patients were symptom free and made complete recovery, four needed analgesic injections for management of severe pain, two had post-procedure bleeding, two had difficulty in opening bowel while three needed rebanding due to slipping of the band. The percentage of complication in F-band was 34.2%, whereas in R-band it was 29.7%. The difference in percentages between two bands was found statistically non-significant with P = 0.62, X2 = 0.24 Conclusion: Four regular bands (R-Band) commercially available in the market cost about 90 to 120 rupees whereas bands made from Foley`s catheter (F-Band) cost approximately a rupee. So making a rubber band out of a Foley`s catheter is a very cost effective and reasonable alternative to the commercially available rubber band, without compromising on the patient management. The results are more or less the same while the material cost is one tenth that of the commercially available rubber bands.

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