ABSTRACT
The terms ‘perianal haematoma’ (British) and ‘thrombosed external hemorrhoid’ (American) are synonymous, but neither is sufficiently accurate. ‘Perianal hematoma’ suggests an extravascular bleed and subsequent collection rather than a discrete venous clot, and ‘thrombosed external hemorrhoid’ associates this condition with internal hemorrhoids when in fact they are only tangentially related. Both these terms have such wide recognition that a Commonwealth practitioner might puzzle over the American shorthand ‘TEH’, while a reader of American texts might wonder why one would ever excise a perianal hematoma. The compromise term ‘perianal thrombosis’, both concise and accurate, is used here.
