Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have been awarded a £1 million grant to trial a new haemorrhoid removal surgery.
The trial, named ‘ORION’, is being conducted by researchers at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with the University of Sheffield to assess whether the new method is as effective as existing treatment methods.
The technique being tested is called ‘radiofrequency ablation’, which uses radio frequencies to shrink the haemorrhoid, rather than remove it or tie it off. This builds off an investigation in 2016 that looked into using ‘rubber band ligation’ to tie the base of the haemorrhoid and stop blood flow.
Research will also assess how effective this new method is by measuring pain and the recurrence of haemorrhoids.
The investigation is being funded by the National Institute for Health Research, and led by Steven Brown, Consultant Surgeon at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The trial will involve 300 participants across 16 hospitals in the UK.
Mr Brown said: “We are very pleased to be leading on this important trial. Radiofrequency ablation has many potential advantages over other surgical interventions and so we hope that the trial will demonstrate an effective and less painful treatment for haemorrhoids, which affect as many as 1 in 4 of the population.”
