Retrospective evaluation of patients with Incisional hernia treated by intraperitoneal dual mesh in Afyon Kocatepe University General Surgery Department between 2000-2009

Incisional hernia has been reported to develop following 10-12% of abdominal surgical procedures. Incisional hernia while causing considerable economic loss and morbidity, is also a factor that adversely affects quality of life. Development and repair of incisional hernia is an important topic in the surgical practice which aims to prevent the development of incisional hernia by eliminating the avoidable causes and to treat it with the most appropriate technique in order to prevent recurrences once it develops. The only treatment option for incisional hernia is surgery. There have been 2 different surgical techniques. The first one is the primary repair where patient's own tissues are used. In the second technique, synthetic materials are used for repair. If the size of the defect is smaller than 4 cm with surrounding viable tissue, primary repair is a reasonable alternative while hernia larger than 4 cm or smaller than 4 cm but consisting of multiple defects should be repaired using prosthetic material due to high recurrence rate with primary repair in this report. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of intraperitoneal dual mesh and occur a different point of view to this issue where a definitive consensus has not been formed. Records of patients to whom intraperitoneal dual mesh was performed at Afyon Kocatepe University School of Medicine, Department of General Surgery between 2000 and 2009 were reviewed retrospectively. Age, sex, body mass index(BMI), prior abdominal surgeries and hernia repairs, defect size, length of hospital stay, complications, hernia recurrences were recorded separately for each patient. Beside definitive statistics, Chi-Square, Fisher's Exact Test and Mann- Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis. Qualitative variables between groups were compared using Chi-square test and Fisher's Exact test while Mann-Whitney U test was used for the comparison of quantitative variables. Results were considered statistically significant if p value is smaller than 0.05. 40 As a result; use of intraperitoneal dual mesh for the repair of incisional hernia in our clinic was evaluated. Recurrence rate was 12%. Presence of chronic obstructive lung disease and development of infection at the incision line were risk factors for recurrence. Age, obesity, sex, presence of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, size of defect, type of incision, the type of operation that caused the incisional hernia, use or duration of corset and chemotherapy were not related to the development of recurrence. Intraperitoneal dual meshes can be used for the treatment of incisional hernia with acceptable recurrence and complications.