Faecal incontinence: Current knowledges and perspectives

Faecal incontinence (FI) is a disabling and frequent symptom since its prevalence can vary between 5% and 15% of the general population. It has a particular negative impact on quality of life. Many tools are currently available for the treatment of FI, from conservative measures to invasive surgical treatments. The conservative treatment may be dietetic measures, various pharmacological agents, anorectal rehabilitation, posterior tibial nerve stimulation, and transanal irrigation. If needed, patients may have miniinvasive approaches such as sacral nerve modulation or antegrade irrigation. In some cases, a surgical treatment is proposed, mainly external anal sphincter repair. Although these different therapeutic options are available, new techniques are arriving allowing new hopes for the patients. Moreover, most of them are non-invasive such as local application of an α1-adrenoceptor agonist, stem cell injections, rectal injection of botulinum toxin, acupuncture. New more invasive techniques with promising results are also coming such as anal magnetic sphincter and antropylorus transposition. This review reports the main current available treatments of FI and the developing therapeutics tools.