Table 1 Characteristics of the 124 994 patients hospitalised for benign anal lesions and their follow up.

	Benign anal lesions
	Inflammatory lesions*	Haemorrhoids	Total
No of subjects	45 186	79 808	124 994
Men	29 057	42 168	71 225
Women	16 129	37 640	53 769
Total No of person years	555 646	1 022 543	1 578 189
Men	350 194	537 228	887 422
Women	205 452	485 314	690 766
Mean follow up duration (y)	12.3	12.8	12.6
Men	12.0	12.7	12.5
Women	12.7	12.9	12.8
Mean age at entry (y)	42.2	52.6	48.8
Men	41.9	52.2	48.0
Women	42.7	53.1	49.9
No of hospitalisations (%)
1	77.7	90.3
2+	22.2	9.7
Presence of Crohn's disease (%)	3.5	0.1	1.3
No of anal cancers	26	27	53
Age at diagnosis of anal cancer (y)†	59.5 (15.0)	65.0 (14.6)	62.3 (14.9)

*Including fissure, fistula, and perianal abscess.

†Mean (SD).