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Sudden death caused by acute pulmonary embolism after laparoscopic total extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair: a case report and literature review

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Abstract

Purpose

Laparoscopic repair of inguinal hernias is an increasingly popular method of herniorrhaphy, providing advantages, including lower wound infection rates, faster recovery times and less postoperative pain compared with open procedures. The perioperative incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE), which comprises deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, in laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair is low, but VTE is still one of the most common causes of postoperative mortality. Moreover, the VTE risk assessment and prophylaxis in inguinal hernia patients is not well defined.

Methods

We present an unusual case of sudden death owing to acute pulmonary embolism after undergoing total extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair. Medline and PubMed databases were searched using the keywords mentioned below, and the literature on VTE risk assessment and prophylaxis in laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair is reviewed.

Results

Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair, which is regarded as a low risk procedure for VTE, has potential risks for VTE development in the perioperative period. The risks come from both surgical procedures and intrinsic patient characteristics.

Conclusions

Clinicians should consider both the strength of individual risk factors and the cumulative weight of all risk factors prior to surgery. A full VTE risk assessment is essential with proper prophylaxis measures especially in quality-of-life procedures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Surgery, Shanghai Tongren Hospital Affiliated to JiaoTong University School of Medicine, 1111 Xianxia Road, Shanghai, 200336, China

    C. Yang & L. Zhu

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  1. C. Yang
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  2. L. Zhu
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Correspondence to L. Zhu.

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Conflict of interest

Authors Chengguang Yang and Leiming Zhu declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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For this type of study formal consent is not required.

Human and animal rights

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and the national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Experiments with laboratory animals were not conducted in this study.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Yang, C., Zhu, L. Sudden death caused by acute pulmonary embolism after laparoscopic total extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair: a case report and literature review. Hernia 21, 481–486 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10029-017-1587-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10029-017-1587-x

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