CONTEXT: Victims due to the uneasiness, which is caused by their socially shameful nature with persons who suffer, haemorrhoids seem to be neglected by the scientific community. There are lacks in the literature concerning the health epidemiology and economy. Its high prevalance and its invalidating aspect make that this venous affection is a real health problem for public health in the Western Countries: A prevalence of 4.4 % is reported. OBJECTIVE: Evaluating following a society perspective the cost of care for patients suffering from haemorrhoids. METHODOLOGY: Data presented come from different bases (Medline, Pascal, Ohe-ifpma) as well as from the SESI survey concerning pathologies treated in hospital services for short duration as well as PMSI 2000. RESULTS: American patients with mid or moderate haemorrhoids have in average per year of: 1.25 medical consultations, 0.8 prescriptions and 1.38 medical/surgery procedures. About 63.9 % of patients are treated without drug. Surgery seems to be done on 1.37 % of the outpatients. 72% of the financial cost of haemorrhoids seems to be due to hospitalisation for surgery. Following the SESI (last available data, 1993), the number of estimated short hospital stays for haemorrhoids is 51.400, which represents 0.4% of all annual French hospital short stays. 87.3 % of the stays are due to surgery. The average stay is 5.7 days; the cost of stay can be estimated (data PMSI, 2000) to almost 1685 euros. CONCLUSION: The population suffering from haemorrhoids is important and the financial impact for the community is far from being negligible. By extrapolation we have estimated the cost of care at 138 Millions Euros out of which 92 Millions of Euros are for hospitalisation only. This evaluation does not take into consideration indirect cost or cost for self-medication.