Tension-free procedures in the treatment of groin hernias

Hernia repair is one of the most common surgical procedures performed in the United States, with 700,000 operations performed each year. Improvements in surgical technique, together with the development of new prosthetic materials and a better understanding of how to use them, have significantly improved outcomes for many patients. These improvements have occurred most notably in centers specializing in hernia surgery, with some institutions reporting failure rates of less than 1%. In contrast, failure rates for general surgeons, who perform most hernia repairs, remain significantly higher. This has important socioeconomic implications, adding an estimated $28 billion or more to the cost of treating the condition, based on calculations utilizing conservative estimates of failure rates and the average cost of a hernia repair. Success of groin hernia repair is measured primarily by the permanence of the operation, fewest complications, minimal costs, and earliest return to normal activities. This success depends largely on the surgeon's understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the surgical area as well as a knowledge of how to use most effectively the currently available techniques and materials. The most important advance in hernia surgery has been the development of tension-free repairs. In 1958, Usher described a hernia repair using Marlex mesh. The benefit of that repair he described as being "tension-eliminating", or what we now call "tension-free". Usher opened the posterior wall and sutured a swatch of Marlex mesh to the undersurface of the medial margin of the defect and to the shelving edge of the inguinal ligament. He created tails from the mesh that encircled the spermatic cord and secured them to the inguinal ligament. Every type of tension-free repair requires a mesh, whether it is done through an open anterior, open posterior, or laparoscopic route. The most common prosthetic open repairs done today are the Lichtenstein onlay patch repair the PerFix plug and patch repair, the Prolene Hernia System bilayer patch repair and Trabucco’s sutureless preshaped hernioraphy. General surgeons today have access to a wider and more sophisticated range of synthetic biomaterials for use in hernia repair than ever before. The advantages and disadvantages of each of these devices must be understood however, before surgeons select any of these implants. Meanwhile, a 1997 study of various biomaterials used in abdominal wall hernia repair further reported that the risk of infection, seroma formation biomaterial-related intestinal obstructions, and other c