According to our experience, fissurectomy is the method of choice in treating chronic anal fissure. The secondary lesions and the cicatricial distortions are removed. Sphincterotomy is not carried out. We treated 534 patients. Of these, 470 patients underwent surgery. In 3.1% of those patients in whom the surgical scars had healed, fecal spotting occurred postoperatively. There were no further continence disorders. The overall result must be regarded as good compared to reports in the literature.