He felt soreness and swelling at the root of his left thigh three months ago and did not care until recently when he found a protruding lump in his left groin, which was getting bigger and bigger with soreness and swelling, and then came to the hospital. He was very worried because he had heard that after getting a hernia, it was like a place on the body was broken and needed constant surgery to “patch” and repair it, which would leave many sequelae. The incidence of inguinal hernia is much higher than any tumor. “Small intestine gas”, the scientific name of inguinal hernia, looks like a small lump, and it doesn’t hurt to touch it, and it can be pushed into the abdomen, so many people think it’s not a big deal. But don’t look at it as a small lump, it swells up amazingly fast and can change from walnut size to watermelon size within two years. It can be pushed into the abdomen, but once it gets stuck and becomes lodged, it can be fatal. According to statistics, the incidence rate of inguinal hernia in Shanghai is about 3.6‰, which is much higher than any kind of malignant tumor and can occur in both men and women, young and old. The occurrence of inguinal hernia has both congenital and acquired factors. When human beings evolved to walk upright, the inguinal region became the lowest position of the abdominal cavity and was subjected to the greatest pressure; at the same time, the inguinal region lacked complete muscle coverage and was passed by the spermatic cord or the round ligament of the uterus, so the abdominal wall gradually weakened as age increased and the incidence gradually increased. Some scientists theorize that if people live to be 150 years old, then no one will be spared from a hernia. TEP: repair without entering the abdominal cavity The treatment of hernia has now reached a consensus in the medical community: hernia is a non-self-curing disease; the only effective way to treat it is surgery. In general, increased intra-abdominal pressure in the elderly causes organs such as the small intestine and appendix to protrude outward from the inguinal cavity, which are weak points and require open surgery. Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair has now been used, and there are usually two types of procedures: one is transabdominal laparoscopic repair (TAPP), while the other is complete extraperitoneal hernia repair (TEP). Both laparoscopic repairs have the advantages of safety, minimal invasiveness, minimal pain, quick recovery, and simultaneous coverage of hiatus, hiatal, and femoral hernia-prone areas to reduce recurrence, and TAPP can also detect occult hernias that have occurred on the opposite side but have not manifested clinically, helping patients avoid a second hernia surgery. In contrast, TEP does not require access to the abdominal cavity, and the patient has less pain for 24 hours after surgery, shorter operation time and fewer intra-abdominal complications, which is currently the “gold standard” for inguinal hernia treatment in Europe and the United States. After examining and analyzing Mr. Xie, TEP was a good fit for him. His surgery was successfully completed in less than an hour, with less than 5 ml of intraoperative bleeding, and he was out of bed the day after surgery. According to statistics, the current recurrence rate after both TAPP and TEP is less than 1%. Compared with TAPP, TEP surgery has less space and is more difficult to operate, but the postoperative pain can be significantly reduced and the recovery is fast, usually resuming normal activities in about a week, and there are reports of athletes participating in the Tour de France in 3 weeks after surgery abroad. Since the congenital factors that lead to hernia cannot be overcome, prevention is mainly aimed at the acquired factors, i.e. avoiding the conditions that cause long-term abdominal pressure increase, in short, reducing the cases of forceful breath-holding, such as controlling symptoms and reducing the duration of chronic coughing and phlegm in patients with chronic chronic bronchitis; reducing forceful stool-holding and eating as many fruits and vegetables as possible in people with constipation. If necessary, you can use some laxatives with soft effects; patients with prostate hypertrophy should urinate less forcefully and should go to the urology department for timely treatment to improve urination symptoms. In addition, appropriate abdominal muscle exercise can also maintain a certain amount of abdominal wall muscle strength, reducing the chances of thinning and breaking of the abdominal wall.