Kristin McCoy, MD, William Symons, MD, James Clarke, MD, Marissa Novack, MD, Meaghan Broderick, MD. Stamford Hospital
The inguinal hernia repair has seen several critical improvements in recent times due to the implementation of new techniques, including laparoscopic repair, as well as robotic repair. With over 600,000 inguinal hernia repairs performed annually, it is important to identify the safest and most patient-friendly method. For surgeons, robotic assisted laparoscopic surgery is gaining in popularity for its dexterity and 3D visualization. But despite the growing interest in robotic hernia repairs, there is a scarcity of literature to support its superiority over open inguinal hernia repair. This study hypothesizes that patients who undergo robot assisted laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair will have decreased immediate post-operative pain, shorter recovery room stays, decreased narcotic requirement, and overall decreased pain at follow up compared to open inguinal hernia repair.
In this study, we performed a retrospective analysis of patients who underwent either an open or robotic assisted laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair at Stamford Hospital, from July 2015-July 2017. The following characteristics were analyzed for both subsets of patients: gender, BMI, type of repair, operative time, recovery room time, immediate post-operative pain, and post-operative pain at follow up. Our study demonstrated longer average operative time for patients undergoing robotic hernia repair compared to open repair, which was statistically significant (p value = <0.05). Patients who underwent robotic inguinal hernia repair spent less time in the recovery room compared to patient who underwent open repair. In addition, patients in the robotic hernia group required less narcotics in the recovery room compared to patients who underwent open repair (p value = <0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between lengths of hospital stay between the two groups.
This study highlights several possible advantages of robotic inguinal hernia repair, including lower post-operative pain scores, less narcotic usage required in the post-operative period, as well as shorter recovery room time. The results from this study should increase interest in investigating the superiority of robotic inguinal hernia repair. Future plans for study involve comparing robotic to laparoscopic repair. In addition, we plan to continue to follow the study patients to look at additional qualitative metrics, including time to return to work and time to return to daily activities.
Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
Abstract ID: 86169
Program Number: P785
Presentation Session: iPoster Session (Non CME)
Presentation Type: Poster