Hemorrhoidal disease is highly prevalent in Pakistan as approx. 10% of the population suffers and due to lack of awareness only 5 million patients get treated. Due to the presence of misconceptions and conventional treatments the disease remains a menace to the society. Hence, there was a dire need to develop local guidelines helping family physicians to better manage their patients from being misdiagnosed and undertreated.
For this Servier Research and Pharmaceuticals [Pakistan] (Pvt) Ltd in collaboration with SOSP and PMA developed an advisory board member to formulate 01st National Hemorrhoids Guidelines for family physicians in Pakistan. The ad-board also conducted multiple workshops in all major cities of Pakistan to educate family physicians to better manage the disease in their clinics under the umbrella of SOSP.
On 11th April 2015, it was indeed a great moment of pride for PMA and SOSP to launch these guidelines among medical fraternity particularly mainly surgeons, gynecologists and family physicians during International Surgical Conference held in Al-N afees Medical College, Islamabad. Launch ceremony included address by Prof. Dr. Asif Zafar Malik (President Society of Surgeons of Pakistan Rawalpindi/Islamabad Chapter) and Dr. Rizwan Majeed (CEO Servier Research and Pharmaceuticals [Pakistan] (Pvt.) Ltd) that paid thanks to all advisory board members for their hard work and contribution to develop these guidelines. Daflon 500 (venoactive drug) got the strong recommendations in the guidelines as the most referenced pharmacological treatment across all grades of hemorrhoidal disease. Servier Pakistan also organized pre-conference workshop for GPs on 8th April at PC Rawalpindi with Prof. Asif Zafar Malik aimed to train GPs for proctoscopy, handling HD patients and their management with interactive case studies & quizzes. Servier in collaboration with SOSP awarded 01 CME point for this workshop to all participants who have successfully completed the training
To summarize it was a challenging milestone achieved under the umbrella of national society of surgeons and build consensus to make referral guidelines for family physicians to practice that will surely help to reduce the hemorrhoidal disease burden.
