Abstract
Appropriate management of fecal incontinence requires its standardization by a guideline, which ought to be useful and reliable based upon international standards. The International Consultation on Incontinence (ICI) is an international consensus meeting for urinary and fecal incontinence, which has been held every 3 or 4 years since 1998. It has proposed various guidelines regarding the management of urinary and fecal incontinence. Upon preparing a clinical practice guideline for the management of fecal incontinence in Japan for the first time, it would be extremely valuable to utilize the ICI guideline for reference, although there might be some differences in disease structure, culture and medical system. Therefore, this paper introduces the latest guideline for the management of fecal incontinence, which was agreed at the 5th ICI in Paris, 2012. However, some recommendations for examinations and therapies might have to be altered according to recent evidence because 3 years have already passed since the last ICI. Recently, the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS) has published a “Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Fecal Incontinence” based on the latest evidence. The recommendations of the ASCRS are presented in this paper as well as those of the ICI.
