l malformations have abnormal voluntary striated muscles with different degrees of hypodevelopment. Voluntary muscles can be used only when the patient has the sensation that it is necessary to use them. To appreciate that sensation, the patient needs information that can only be derived from an intact anal sensory mechanism, a mechanism that many patients with anorectal malformations lack.
Exquisite sensation in normal individuals resides in the anal canal. Except for patients with rectal atresia, most patients with anorectal malformations are born without an anal canal; therefore, sensation does not exist or is rudimentary.
It seems that patients can perceive distention of the rectum but this requires a rectum that has been properly located within the muscle structures. This sensation seems to be a consequence of stretching of the voluntary muscle (proprioception). The most important clinical implication of this is that liquid stool or soft fecal material may not be felt by the patient as it does not distend the rectum. Thus, to achieve some degree of sensation and bowel control, the patient must have the capacity to form solid stool.
Perhaps the most important factor in fecal continence is bowel motility; however, the impact of motility has been largely underestimated. In a normal individual, the rectosigmoid remains quiet for variable periods of time (one to several days), depending on specific defecation habits. During that time, sensation and voluntary muscle structures are almost not necessary because the stool, if it is solid, remains inside the colon. The patient feels the peristaltic contraction of the rectosigmoid that occurs prior to defecation. Voluntarily, the normal individual can relax the striated muscles which allow the rectal contents to migrate down into the highly sensitive area of the anal canal. There, accurate information is provided by the anal canal concerning the consistency and quality of the stool. The voluntary muscles are used to push the rectal contents back up into the rectosigmoid and to hold them if desired, until the appropriate time for evacuation. At the time of defecation, the voluntary muscle structures relax.
The main factor that provokes the emptying of the rectosigmoid is a massive involuntary peristaltic contraction helped sometimes by a Valsalva maneuver. Most patients with an anorectal malformation suffer from a disturbance of this sophisticated bowel motility mechanism. Patients who have undergone a posterior sagittal anorectoplasty or any other type of sacroperineal approach, in which the most distal part of the bowel was preserved, show evidence of an over-efficient bowel reservoir (megarectum). The main clinical manifestation of this is constipation, which seems to be more severe in patients with lower defects.
Constipation that is not aggressively treated, in combination with an ectatic distended colon, eventually leads to severe constipation, and a vicious cycle ensues, with worsening constipation leading to more rectosigmoid dilation, leading to worse constipation. The enormously dilated rectosigmoid, with normal ganglion cells, behaves like a myopathic type of hypomotile colon.
Those patients with anorectal malformation treated with techniques in which the most distal part of the bowel was resected behave clinically as individuals without a rectal reservoir. This is a situation equivalent to a perineal colostomy. Depending on the amount of colon resected, the patient may have loose stools. In these cases, medical management consisting of enemas plus a constipating diet, and medications to slow down the colonic motility is indicated.
True fecal incontinence
For patients with true fecal incontinence, the ideal approach is a bowel management program consisting of teaching the patient and his/her parents how to clean the colon once daily so as to stay completely clean for twenty-four hours. This is achieved by keeping the colon quiet in between enemas. These patients cannot have voluntary bowel movements and require an artificial mechanism to empty their colon, a daily en