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Minimally invasive ventral herniorrhaphy: an analysis of 6,266 published cases

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Abstract

Background

Over 300,000 ventral abdominal wall hernias are repaired each year in the United States; many of these operations are done with a minimally invasive approach. Despite these numbers, there are few controlled data that evaluate the minimally invasive method of ventral hernia repair.

Methods

A review of over 6,000 published cases of minimally invasive ventral herniorrhaphy was performed in order to determine major outcome statistics for this procedure.

Results

The mean follow-up period was 20 months. The operative mortality was 0.1%. The mean recurrence rate (weighted) was 2.7%, and the major complication rate (mostly bowel injury and infection) was 3%.

Conclusion

The results from published cases of minimally invasive ventral herniorrhaphy appear to be competitive with the historical results of open ventral herniorrhaphy. The major caveats of this review are that most of the data are (1) retrospective/uncontrolled and (2) obtained from specialized centers.

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Fig. 1a–c
Fig. 2a–c
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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

PTFE:

Polytetrafluoroethylene

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Acknowledgments

MAC was supported by a training grant from the NIH (K08 GM00703). LEL was supported by educational grants from Ethicon Endo-Surgery and United States Surgical.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA

    M. A. Carlson

  2. Department of Surgery, Omaha VA Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA

    M. A. Carlson

  3. Department of Surgery, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    C. T. Frantzides & L. E. Laguna

  4. The Chicago Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Chicago, IL, USA

    C. T. Frantzides & L. E. Laguna

  5. Department of Preventive and Societal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA

    V. K. Shostrom

  6. Surgery 112, VA Medical Center, 4101 Woolworth Avenue, Omaha, NE, 68105, USA

    M. A. Carlson

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  1. M. A. Carlson
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  2. C. T. Frantzides
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  3. V. K. Shostrom
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  4. L. E. Laguna
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. A. Carlson.

Additional information

Portions of this data were presented in a poster at the 2007 meeting of the American Hernia Society (Hollywood, FL, March 2007).

In the interval between the statistical analysis and the submission of this manuscript, at least four series [84–87] and three small randomized trials [2, 45, 66] were published that would have met our inclusion criteria; these papers would have increased the number of procedures in our review by ~650. We apologize to these authors for not including their data in our statistical analysis.

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Carlson, M.A., Frantzides, C.T., Shostrom, V.K. et al. Minimally invasive ventral herniorrhaphy: an analysis of 6,266 published cases. Hernia 12, 9–22 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10029-007-0286-4

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