Laparoscopic cholecystectomy accompanied by simultaneous umbilical hernia repair: a retrospective study

Umbilical defects may cause technical problems for general surgeons in patients during laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) operations and may increase the incidence of incisional hernia.

The objectives of this study were to determine the optimal repair method for umbilical hernias that already exist or are encountered incidentally and to present data regarding potential problems that may occur during LC.

Medical records of patients who had received simultaneous umbilical hernia repair (UHR) with LC were investigated retrospectively.

Cholelithiasis was accompanied by umbilical hernia in 64 (8.6%) out of 745 patients who underwent LC and UHR simultaneously in our hospital between 2000 and 2004.

The Mann-Whitney U, Chi-square, One-Way Anova, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, the log-rank test and t test were used for statistical analyses.

LC was followed by UHR using primary suture (Group 1), Mayo repair (Group 2) and flat mesh-based repair (Group 3) in 32 (50%), 18 (28.1%) and 14 (21.9%) patients, respectively. Mean body mass indexes (BMI) of patients were 26.6 kg/m 2, 29.2 kg/m 2 and 39.9 kg/m 2 in Groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Recurrence rates were 9.4%, 5.6% and none (0%) in Groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Recurrence was observed in three (7.0%) out of 43(67.2%) patients with BMI > or = 30 kg/m 2 while umbilical hernia recurred in one (4.8%) out of 21 (32.8%) patients with BMI < 30 kg/m 2. Overall morbidity and mortality rates were 14.1% and 0%, respectively.

The outcomes of the UHR with mesh after laparoscopic surgeries appear to be better for either obese or non-obese patients than primary suture techniques in recurrence rates.