Dr. Atish Haldar
BACKGROUND
Repair of groin hernia acquired during adult life involves application of a mesh, and avoidance of tension. We wanted to compare the post-operative outcomes mainly chronic groin pain and the feeling of a foreign body (FBR) at the operative site after inguinal Lichtenstein hernioplasty with light- weight (LW) and heavy-weight (HW) mesh, and evaluate the patient’s quality of life after inguinal hernia repair.
METHODS
This is a randomized prospective study conducted at the department of surgery of a tertiary care centre of West Bengal among 50 male patients in the age group of 15-74 years from September 2016 to August 2019 with a clinical diagnosis of inguinal hernia. The patients were divided in to two equal groups; among them 25 patients underwent Lichtenstein’s tension-free mesh hernioplasty with heavy-weight (HW) polypropylene mesh while the rest 25 patients were repaired with light-weight (LW) macro-pore polypropylene mesh. In each group, patients were selected randomly.
RESULTS
Compared with heavy-weight (HW) small porous mesh, light-weight (LW) macro pore mesh had the advantage of reduced chronic groin pain at the operation site after inguinal hernioplasty. LW mesh group also had significant advantage of reduced foreign body sensation at the implant recipient site as compared to the HW mesh group.
CONCLUSIONS
In spite of advantage of reduced chronic groin pain at the operation site after inguinal hernioplasty, LW mesh did not show any significant advantage in reducing early post-operative complications as compared to HW mesh. Further long term study required with broader sample size.
