Surgical procedures Part 2

During stapled hemorrhoidectomy, the arterial blood vessels that travel within the expanded hemorrhoidal tissue and feed the hemorrhoidal vessels are cut, thereby reducing the blood flow to the hemorrhoidal vessels and reducing the size of the hemorrhoids.

During the healing of the cut tissues around the staples, scar tissue forms, and this scar tissue anchors the hemorrhoidal cushions in their normal position higher in the anal canal. The staples are needed only until the tissue heals.

They then fall off and pass in the stool unnoticed after several weeks. Stapled hemorrhoidectomy is designed primarily to treat internal hemorrhoids, but if external hemorrhoids are present, they may be reduced as well.

Stapled hemorrhoidectomy is faster than traditional hemorrhoidectomy, taking approximately 30 minutes. It is associated with much less pain than traditional hemorrhoidectomy and patients usually return earlier to work. Patients often sense a fullness or pressure within the rectum as if they need to defecate, but this usually resolves within several days.

The risks of stapled hemorrhoidectomy include bleeding, infection, anal fissuring (tearing of the lining of the anal canal), narrowing of the anal or rectal wall due to scarring, persistence of internal or external hemorrhoids, and, rarely, trauma to the rectal wall.

Stapled hemorrhoidectomy may be used to treat patients who have both internal and external hemorrhoids; however, it also is an option to combine a stapled hemorrhoidectomy to treat the internal hemorrhoids and a simple resection of the external hemorrhoids.