Endoscopic Techniques in the Treatment of Inguinal Hernias

Abstract

The review is devoted to the treatment methods of inguinal hernia. Inguinal hernia repair is one of the most common operations in the world and is performed on more than 20 million patients per year. Recurrence rates of inguinal hernias after different types of surgical interventions range from 10 to 15%. The use of synthetic materials reduced the rates of hernia recurrence on average to 1-5%. Currently there are traditional tissue-based techniques, open tension-free mesh hernia repair, and laparoscopic mesh hernioplasty. Nowadays tension-free repair with synthetic mesh is a technique of choice for inguinal hernia repair. The emphasis has been placed on endoscopic methods of inguinal hernia prosthetic repair. According to the literature, laparoscopic repair is associated with low rates of wound infection and fewer haematomas, which leads to early resumption of everyday activities compared with Lichtenstein hernia repair. The paper discusses two standardized endoscopic methods for inguinal hernia treatment, namely laparoscopic transabdominal preperitoneal patch (TAPP) and total extraperitoneal (TEP) repair. Analysis of the literature has shown that criteria of necessity and method of mesh fixation during TAPP procedure were not completely identified. However, a number of researches have demonstrated that TAPP technique without mesh fixation proved to be a safe procedure which can be used in most patients with unilateral and bilateral inguinal hernia showing no increase in postoperative complications and low recurrence rates.