Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair without tension

  Inguinal hernia is a common and frequent disease in general surgery. The main treatment for hernias is high ligation of the hernia sac and repair of the defective abdominal wall. The traditional method uses the abdominal wall’s own muscle as the repair material, and the design flaws of this procedure lead to postoperative tension pain, slow recovery, many complications and high recurrence rate.  We believe that the reasons for the high recurrence rate after surgery are as follows: ① The suture of the joint tendon with the inguinal ligament is a suture of two different anatomical tissues, which cannot achieve true healing; ② Forced suturing of the above two different anatomical planes will definitely lead to misalignment and excessive tension; ③ Regardless of the procedure, the repair is done on the adjacent tissues of the original inguinal defect, which itself has poor resistance to pressure. ③ Regardless of the surgical procedure, the repair is done on the adjacent tissue of the original inguinal defect, and the pressure resistance of the repaired tissue itself is poor, so the tension of the repaired local tissue against abdominal pressure is also poor. Therefore, the success of surgical repair is not effective in preventing the weakening of local resistance, leading to recurrence of the hernia.  In 1989, Lichtenstein introduced the new concept of “tension-free” hernia repair. Tension-free hernia repair has been promoted because of its physiological anatomy. The literature reports a recurrence rate of less than 1%-2% for tension-free hernia repair. The postoperative results of the tension-free hernia repair group show that it has the advantages of simple operation, mild postoperative pain, rapid recovery, low recurrence rate, and few complications compared with traditional surgery; the disadvantage is that some patients have a hard local sensation and sometimes have local tissue reaction, and in severe cases, the patch needs to be removed. In addition, there are still shortcomings from the minimally invasive point of view, because large incisions and separation of tissues are still required to displace the spermatic cord.  McKernan et al. reported that there are currently two main types of laparoscopic hernia repair: laparoscopic transperitoneal preperitoneal patch implantation (TAPP) and laparoscopic completely extraperitoneal approach patch implantation (TEP). These two techniques are technically sound and have a low early recurrence rate, and are now the most widely used methods of laparoscopic hernia repair.  Compared with traditional hernia repair and tension-free hernia repair, laparoscopic hernia repair has the following advantages: ① aesthetic wound and less injury; ② quick recovery and short hospital stay; ③ mild postoperative pain and less use of analgesics; ④ simultaneous treatment of both sides of the hernia and exploration of other organs of the abdominal cavity without increasing the incision and lengthening the incision; to find the advantages of occult hernia and femoral hernia; ⑤ low complications, because laparoscopic surgery does not need to separate and destroy the perihilar tissues, so it does not cause scrotal edema and rarely causes urinary retention; ⑥it is not necessary to separate the spermatic cord and destroy the anatomy of the inguinal region, and for recurrent hernias it is not necessary to dissect the original scar tissue to avoid damaging the anatomy of the inguinal region; ⑦it is fully compatible with the principle of tension-free repair. Disadvantages: general anesthesia and more expensive.  According to clinical research, the overall incidence of postoperative complications of trans-laparoscopic hernia repair is 5%-8%, which is much lower than that of traditional open surgery, which is 15%-21%. With the improvement of people’s living standard, minimally invasive has become a treatment trend accepted by people for sure.