Suture Repair vs Mesh Repair in the Treatment of Incarcerated Groin Hernia in Elderly Populations

This study includes consecutive patients ≥65 years diagnosed with IGH who underwent emergency surgical repair at our center between January 2015 and June 2022. The study is conducted in compliance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments.

Only true emergencies were included in the study, involving IGH patients who underwent urgent surgical repair within six hours of an emergency admission or patients who underwent emergency surgery due to sudden exacerbation while awaiting elective repair surgery during hospitalization. Various techniques were performed to repair IGH during the surgical procedure. In cases where there was no ischemic necrosis of the hernia contents, the hernia content was simply reduced, followed by high ligation of the hernia sac at the inner ring of the groin. Subsequently, mesh repair was conducted using a synthetic and biological mesh in the Lichtenstein or open preperitoneal techniques, while suture repair was utilized in the Bassini, Ferguson, or Halsted operation. For femoral hernias, McVay repair was used in suture repair while open preperitoneal techniques was used for mesh repair. In cases of IGH accompanied by intestinal necrosis, the initial procedure involved resection of the necrotic bowel followed by in vitro anastomosis through a groin incision. Subsequently, high ligation of the hernia sac was carried out, and the choice between mesh or tissue repair was left to the discretion of the surgeon. The choice of surgical techniques was based on the surgeons' experience and the overall condition of the patient. Based on the surgical method used, the researchers were categorized into two groups: suture repair and mesh repair groups.

After hospital discharge, the patient was scheduled for regular outpatient visits for at least 1 year of follow-up, physical Examination and patient's subjective perceptions were used to determine the presence of recurrence or other long-term complications. The end of the follow-up was June 2023. Recorded death, recurrence, or loss to follow-up were considered to be the endpoint.

Investigators collected data on the following three aspects: (1) patients' demographic information, including age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, previous abdominal operation, previous surgical repair of groin hernia, history of acute incarceration, comorbidities, and time from incarceration to surgery; (2) surgical details, such as the type of groin hernia, preoperative antibiotic use, nighttime surgery (the start time of surgery was from 5 p.m. to before 8 a.m. the next day), hernia contents, bowel resection, hernia sac size, area of the hernia ring, prosthetic material used, open or laparoscopic surgery, type of anesthesia (general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia), placement of the drainage; and (3) clinical outcomes, which included postoperative recurrence as a long-term outcome, and the surgery related death, surgical site infection (SSI) within 30 days, length of hospital stay, ICU admission, and overall wound complications as short-term outcomes.