- Incisional hernias are hernias that occur at previous surgery sites. Weakness in the incision, accompanied by any factor that increases intra-abdominal pressure (constipation, chronic cough, straining, lifting heavy objects, obesity) contributes to the occurrence of these hernias. These factors have to be corrected prior to any operation to have a greater success rate. In the presence of any of these factors, especially obesity, failure rate of repair approaches 25%.
Both open and Laparoscopic repair can be done. Open repair has the advantage over laparoscopic repair if the hernia size was huge with excessive redundant skin. With open repair, the sac and the skin can be excised completely. Laparoscopic repair meanwhile, offers less wound complications, Seroma (fluid accumulation at hernia repair site) formation, less pain and faster recovery especially if the patient does not have excessively redundant skin. These operations also include removing previous adhesions from prior surgeries. Our experience with them is great, with excellent patient satisfaction and lower than literature recurrence rate.