Surgical treatment of incisional hernia is an actual problem of abdominal surgery. Despite the improvement of surgical techniques, the results of surgical treatment cannot be considered satisfactory: the recurrence rate continues to be high and is due to failures in the reconstruction of complex ventral hernia. Although there are many works devoted to various aspects of the surgical treatment of patients with complex incisional hernias, the problem is not sufficiently resolved. The treatment of this category of patients is a difficult task for both surgeons and patients due to the high risk of general and local complications. A clinical case of surgical treatment of a patient with a complex incisional hernia is presented, in which it was possible to carry out a complete reconstruction of the anterior abdominal wall in two stages without "components separation" method.
Aim
to study the early and long-term outcomes of the abdominal wall reconstruction (AWR) of complex incisional hernias.
Material & Methods
We retrospectively reviewed prospectively collected data from 121 patients with 1 to 7 years of follow-up, who underwent midline AWR between 2015 and 2022. The complexity of hernia was determined according to the criteria of N. J. Slater et all. All patients had a hernia gate width ≥10cm (W3). “Loss of domain”≥20% had 38% of patients, a recurrence after previously performed mesh-reinforced AWR (R1–5) - 36%, purulent fistulas, trophic ulcers and chronic seromas - 9%. Three laparotomies or more in anamnesis had 48.7% patients. Obesity had 74.4%; type II diabetes mellitus - 26.5%; COPD - 15.7%. Mesh-reinforced fascial repairs were used in 73 (60.33%) cases, bridged repairs were used in 48 (39.67%) cases.
Results
Wound complications in the early postoperative period were observed in 48 (40.5%) patients. Long-term outcomes: recurrence hernia - 7 (5.8%), ligature fistula - 3 (2.5%), chronic wound - 2 (1.6%), pseudocyst - 3 (2.5%), building of the mesh - 7 (5.8%). Mesh-reinforced AWRs with primary fascial coaptation resulted in fewer hernia recurrences (2.7% vs 10.4%) and fewer wound (31.5% vs 52.2%) and overall (5.5% vs 16.6%) complications than bridged repairs. At the same time, bridged repairs resulted in fewer postoperative pain (9.6% versus 4.2%) than mesh-reinforced AWRs.
Conclusions
Surgical treatment of patients with complex incisional hernias requires the use of combined techniques for AWR using a mesh, which reduces the recurrence to 5.8%.
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