Introduction: External hemorrhoids are located outside of the dentate line and covered by anoderm. Thrombosed external hemorrhoids are one of the frequent acute anorectal diseases which are treated successfully in the proctology outpatient room. The etiology of this disease is still unknown. Knowledge of the etiology of thrombosed external hemorrhoids could prevent recurrence of this disease and help prepare good prophylaxis.
Material/methods: A group of 50 patients with a diagnosis of thrombosed external hemorrhoids and treated in the Mikolaj Pirogow Regional Specialist Hospital in Lodz was interviewed by means of the author's own questionnaire concerning demography and published hypothesis. The necessary statistics were conducted by means of STATISTICA 7.1 and EXCEL 2008 programs.
Results: The analysis of the survey results shows a significant relationship of thrombosed external hemorrhoids and presence of internal hemorrhoids, practice of anoreceptive sex and consumption of more alcohol products than usual. There was no statistical relationship between lifting heavy objects, eating spicy food, having hard stools or straining at toilet during motions and thrombosed external hemorrhoids.
Conclusions: This study confirmed three hypotheses on the causes of thrombosed external hemorrhoids which were presented in medical journals available in the MEDLINE database. The author of this article believes that it is necessary to conduct a multi-center study, which would explain the exact etiology of this disease. Knowledge about the etiology of thrombosed external disease would help develop effective prevention and treatment.