Inguinal hernia repair is one of the oldest and most common surgical procedures. In the last 30 years, the traditional technique of hernia repair with tension has been gradually replaced by a tension-free repair technique. After implantation of the allograft patch, a foreign body inflammatory response is produced in the adjacent tissues, causing fibrosis of the inguinal area tissues, which leads to a definitive healing. The recurrence rates after all modern tension-free repairs are low, and chronic pain and infertility after hernia repair are increasingly being taken into account by clinicians. Many animal studies have reported sterility after patch hernia repair in male animal models due to the possibility of vasovaginal or seminiferous vessel closure. However, relevant clinical studies are less reported and the number of cases in the available studies is small. Some scholars therefore do not advocate the use of patches in young male inguinal hernia patients, while more others believe that the available clinical evidence is insufficient and further studies are needed to confirm this. Therefore, a large retrospective study was conducted by Professor Magnus Hall et al. from Karolinska University, Sweden. Data were obtained from the Swedish National Hernia Database system, with all enrolled male patients born between 1950 and 1989, and from the Swedish National Infertility Database system, where the two databases were crossed to analyze indicators such as cumulative incidence of infertility after inguinal hernia patch repair. The number of cases investigated in this study is currently the largest of its type worldwide. In total, the authors investigated 34,267 male patients who had undergone at least 1 inguinal hernia repair procedure, of whom 233 (0.7%) were diagnosed with infertility after undergoing their first inguinal hernia repair without tension. The authors compared the cumulative incidence of infertility in male inguinal hernia patients after surgery with that in the general population and with the incidence of infertility after patch or non-patch repair by analysis. Statistical analysis showed no significant difference between the expected and observed cumulative incidence of infertility in patients who underwent patch repair and a mildly increased risk of infertility in patients who had undergone bilateral hernia repair, but the cumulative incidence was less than 1%. Therefore, the authors concluded that there is no increased risk of male infertility after inguinal hernia patch repair.