Long-term Outcomes of Laparoscopic Totally Extraperitoneal Inguinal Herniorrhaphy

Jun-Beom Park, MD, Ji-Young Sul, MD, PhD, Yo-Han Choi, MD, Ju-Hong Park, MD

Department of Surgery, Chungnam National University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea

Introduction: Laparoscopic inguinal herniorrhaphy, especially laparoscopic TEP repair has become the favorable method of inguinal herniorrhaphy. Although, there are reports about the short term results of laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair comparing with open surgery, but there are limited data of long-term outcome of laparoscopic totally extraperitoneal(TEP) inguinal hernia repair. We reported long-term results more than 55 months of follow-up

Methods: Between January 2002 and December 2007, of the patients that underwent laparoscopic TEP for inguinal hernia by single surgeon, 180 patients underwent follow-up with a physical examination or telephone interview were enrolled

Results: A total of 196 TEP procedures in 180 patients (age range 15-88 years; men, 88.3%) were successfully performed without conversion to transabdominal preperitoneal (TAPP) or open surgery. During the follow-up period of more than 55 months (55-120 months) chronic inguinal discomfort or pain was noted in fourteen patients (n=14, 7.7% per patient or 7.1% per repair) and the severity of pain was mild (n=11), moderate (n=2), or severe (n=1). In most of the patients, the groin pain occurred very infrequently and the duration of the pain varied from a few seconds to a few minutes. There was one suspicious recurrence (0.5%), which was quite comparable to open surgery. Four cases of mesh infection (2.03%) were noted. Chronic mesh infection may be more frequent than reported previously. Otherwise, most of the patients were satisfied with their results

Conclusion: the long-term results of the study demonstrate that laparoscopic TEP is a safe procedure to repair inguinal hernia with a low incidence of chronic pain and very low recurrence rate. However, among mesh-related complications, mesh infections have become increasingly important. Clinicians should promptly consider the possibility of mesh infection in any patient who has undergone hernia surgery involving mesh, and who has any manifestations of abdominal wall

Session: Poster Presentation

Program Number: P293