Early results of Shouldice vs Lichtenstein vs laparoscopic transabdominal preperitoneal inguinal hernia repair: multicenter randomized clinical trial

Background / objective. Open anterior inguinal hernia repair is a time-tested, safe and well-understood operation with a high success rate, while laparoscopic techniques are fairly recent; their short- and long-term outcomes are still being evaluated, but the best method of inguinal hernia repair is still unclear. Methods. A prospective randomized multicenter clinical trial was performed in four surgical centers of Lithuania. Patients were operated on from January to December, 2003. Intraoperative, early and late postoperative complications, time of operation, hospital stay, postoperative pain evaluation, frequency of recurrence and changes of quality of life of laparoscopic TAPP (n = 82), Lichtenstein (n = 81) and Shouldice (n = 85) hernia repair were compared. Results. The mean operative time in the laparoscopic TAPP group was significantly longer than the mean operative time in Lichtenstein and Shouldice hernia repair group. There were no major intraoperative complications and only two postoperative wound infections in the Shouldice and Lichtenstein group. There was no difference in the frequency of minor intraoperative and early postoperative complications in the groups. The mean pain scores in the laparoscopic TAPP group were significantly lower than the corresponding scores in the Lichtenstein and Shouldice group (p < 0.05 at 8 h after operation and p < 0.01 at 24 h after operation). Statistically significant differences were found in hospital stay, the shortest stay being recorded in the laparoscopic TAPP group (p = 0.026 comparing laparoscopic TAPP and Lichtenstein hernia repair). 36 (42.3%) patients in the Shouldice and 23 (28.4%) in the Lichtenstein group felt a moderate or mild pain 2 weeks postoperatively, while there were only 2 (2.4%) patients with a mild pain in the laparoscopic TAPP group [...]