Tension-free repair of inguinal hernia

  Tension-free hernia repair has been developed for more than 20 years and is rapidly growing because of its low recurrence rate, mild postoperative pain, rapid recovery, and wide surgical indications. -The modified Lichtenstein procedure.  The Lichtenstein procedure is one of the most classic and widely used tension-free hernia repairs today. Its theoretical basis is based on repairing the weak or defective transverse abdominal fascia and reconstructing the posterior wall of the inguinal canal to prevent hernia recurrence. The artificial patch was trimmed and flattened to cover the posterior part of the spermatic cord, the posterior wall of the inguinal canal was repaired, and the tendons of the external oblique abdominal muscles, subcutaneous tissue and skin were sutured.  Shouldice’s method: The transverse abdominal fascia was incised upward from the pubic tuberosity to the internal ring, and then the two lobes of the incision were overlapped and sutured, first the lower outer lobe was sutured to the deep surface of the upper inner lobe, and then the edge of the upper inner lobe was sutured to the iliopubic bundle to recreate a suitable internal ring to play its sphincter role, and then the lower edge of the internal oblique abdominal muscle and the joint tendon were sutured to the deep surface of the inguinal ligament according to the Bassini method.  The author combined the advantages of Shouldice’s and Lichtenstein’s surgeries, and tried the modified Lichtenstein’s surgery: that is, after complete freeing of the spermatic cord, the transversus abdominis fascia was sutured (without incision) from the inner ring toward the pubic symphysis as a continuous inversion to complete the first layer of repair, and then the expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE) produced by Gore, USA was used. The second layer was repaired with MycroMesh patch according to Lichtenstein’s method, and finally the third layer was repaired with continuous sutures of absorbable threads to the external oblique tendon membrane.  The author has been repairing inguinal hernia according to this procedure for more than five years and nearly 1000 cases, and no recurrence has been found so far.