Modified Darning’s Plus Lichtenstein’s Repairs for Inguinal Hernias: Report of Author’s 14 Years’ Experience

Background: In third world countries, inguinal hernia recurrence has been reported due to dissolution of counterfeit mesh. This study aims to achieve low recurrence rate by performing double (reinforced) inguinal hernia repair. Methods: This prospective, descriptive case-series study was conducted at author’s different practice hospitals, which includes Fatima hospital-Baqai medical university, Shamsi Hospital, and Moazzum Hospital (Karachi, Pakistan) and University Hospital-Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, (Alkharj, Saudi Arabia) from January 2007 to December 2020. All patients, who underwent modified inguinal hernia repair (Darning’s repair plus Lichtenstein’s repair) were enrolled in the study. The duration of operation and hospital stay, postoperative pain, postoperative complications and time to recurrence were noted. The inclusion criteria were all inguinal hernia patients including unilateral, bilateral, recurrent, obstructed or strangulated hernias. The cases with incomplete patients’ data and patients who were lost to follow-up were excluded. Results: There were 529 patients in the series. The man age was 35.27 ±6.25 ±0.28 years. The mean operative time was 36.71 ±13.26 ±0.59 minutes and mean postoperative hospital stay was 1.14 ±0.72 ±0.03 days. The postoperative complication rate was 8.1%; spinal headache 17 (3.9%), urinary retention 12 (7.3%), urinary tract infection 03 (0.6%), wound infection 03 (0.6%), wound seroma 03 (0.6%), wound hematoma 02 (0.4%), chronic groin pain 01 (0.2%) and recurrence 0 (0%). The mortality rate was also zero. Conclusion: Modified (double) repair of inguinal hernia is a simple procedure to perform, with lower complication and recurrence rates.