61.   This combination of symptoms may be unresponsive to conventional medical treatment.

62.   All subjects were studied without a bowel preparation and after conventional medical treatment had finished.

63.   No patient reported a change of medical treatment during the study.

64.   Two recent controlled studies of biofeedback treatment v conventional medical treatment have cast doubts on the effectiveness of retraining, particularly in liquid stool incontinence in diarrhoea.

65.   We elected to study only patients with disabling liquid stool incontinence and urgency where conventional medical treatment had already failed.

66.   In addition, measurements of prolonged squeezing were not recorded in the two studies where biofeedback was reported to be as effective as conventional medical treatment.

67.   These studies show that if we can define a population with a high risk of recurrent disease then the outlook may be improved by medical treatment.

68.   Medical treatment was considered only for the remaining three patients.

69.   Although the benefit of the heater probe v medical treatment alone has not been established, it seems more effective.

70.   Medical treatments such as cholinergic agents, metoclopramide, and cisapride were also ineffective.