Chronic Pain after Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair Depends on Mesh Implant Features: A Clinical Randomised Trial

The use of alloplastic materials has become the standard procedure in inguinal hernia surgery [1-6]. Hernia surgery is one of the most common visceral operations and thus of great medical and economic importance. Many publications have shown that there are advantages in the early postoperative outcome and lower recurrence rate when using techniques with mesh implantation compared with mesh-free inguinal hernia repair [1-6]. Therefore, inguinal hernia repair with mesh has become the standard in the last 20 years. Open surgery according to Lichtenstein was used most often at the earlier times, whereas minimally invasive techniques have been increasingly applied in the last decade [1-6]. Chronic pain is the most frequent long-term complication after inguinal hernia repair. Its perceived risk varies widely in the international literature. There are studies describing a higher rate of chronic pain after laparoscopic hernia repair in comparison to the open surgery and there are also studies describing it the other way round. Nevertheless, mesh associated chronic pain after hernia repair is an often described phenomenon [7-9].