Minimally invasive repair of ventral hernia with one third of tackers and fibrin glue: less pain and same recurrence rate.

Background: Aim of this study was to assess whether the reduction in the number of tackers maintains a similar recurrence rate and to subsequently evaluate whether this reduction associated with fibrin adhesive (FA) influences postsurgical pain after laparoscopic ventral hernia repair (LVHR) at 5 years follow-up.

Methods: Fifty patients with ventral hernia (intervention group) underwent to LVHR with the double crown (DC) technique with a decrease in the number of tackers, each tacker being separated by about 3 cm associated with FA to seal the spaces between them. Data obtained from intervention group were compared to data obtained from a historical series of 50 patients (control group) undergoing LVHR using DC technique with tackers at 1 cm each other.

Results: No statistically significant differences were found between groups about patients' characteristics. Mean hospital stay was 2 days. Statistically significant differences were observed about hospital stay between both groups U-Mann-Whitney ([UMW] =345, P=0) being higher in the control group. Statistically significant difference was observed in the postoperative pain evaluated by the visual analogical scale (VAS) score, having 95% of patients in the control group with VAS less than or equal to 7 compared to 4.55 in the intervention group. Recurrence rate was 4.1% for the control group versus 4.2% in the intervention group.

Conclusions: The reduction of metallic tackers associated with FA does not present statistically significant differences in the recurrence rate in comparison to conventional DC technique. In the intervention group a reduction in postoperative pain and hospital stay were observed.