Patients who have a hernia repair have about a 1-2% chance of the hernia coming back, or ‘recurring’. Recurrent hernias can pose a more difficult challenge since there has already been one surgery in the area, creating scar tissue. Often the first surgeon used a mesh so repeating the surgery a second time creates difficulty […]
Hernia Society Guidelines on the Treatment of Inguinal Hernias
In my practice, we strive to follow ‘evidence based medicine’ for our treatment of abdominal wall hernias. What is evidence based medicine, or EBM? EBM uses prior medical research studies to determine whats the best approach to a specific medical disease. This goes for cancers, trauma, medications, and for hernia repairs. In 2009, one of […]
Giant Inguinal Hernias Occur in 0.5% of Patients
As exampled in some of our prior hernia posts, giant inguinal hernias can be very technically challenging. Fortunately, they are rare. This article from Hernia 1999 describes an incidence of about 0.5% of all inguinal hernia repair patients. In my practice, since we specialize in hernia repairs, we probably see hernias of this size in […]