[Surgical treatment of primary acquired inguinal hernia with the use of polypropylene prosthesis]

In the "Villa dei Fiori" Nursing Home of Mugnano di Napol, from 1 November 1997 to 31 October 2000, 384 patients were operated on for primary acquired inguinal hernia. They underwent hernioplasty using a polypropylene prosthesis, accounting for 14.1% of all general surgery operations performed. The patients operated on were 345 males and 39 females, with an average age of 53.4 years (range: 16-91 years). All patients were routinely subjected to ultra-short-term prophylaxis with antibiotics for surgical infections. In 211 cases, the operations were performed under local anaesthesia (in 5 of these, owing to poor tolerance of surgical manipulation associated with a state of agitation, the patients also received intraoperative pharmacological sedation in 3 cases, while a neuroleptoanalgesia technique was performed in the other 2); 93 cases were performed under general anaesthesia and 80 cases under subarachnoid anaesthesia. In 21 cases, the inguinal hernioplasty was associated with other operations, most commonly with crural hernioplasty for the treatment of a crural hernia on the same side as the inguinal hernioplasty. We had no intraoperative complications. Postoperative complications occurred in 15 cases (3.9%), 11 of which caused by surgical problems and 4 linked to the anaesthesia technique. Long-term follow-up after surgery, though fairly short on average, was carried out in 265 patients (69% of those operated on), and to date only one relapse has been observed.