Chronic pain after open inguinal hernia repair: a longitudinal self-assessment study

The aim of the present study was to assess the variation of self-reported pain over a period of 2 years in three groups of patients with no, moderate and severe pain at 3 months after primary open inguinal hernia repair.

In two cohorts of patients from 2004 (n = 272) and 2005 (n = 292) who had given a self-report of postoperative pain at 3 months, 79 randomly selected patients without pain (box visual analogue scale [VAS] level 10) and all patients with moderate (Box VAS level 7-9) and severe pain (Box VAS level 1-6), 91 and 9, respectively, were included in the case series. The self-assessments were repeated for all patients 1-1.5 and 2-2.5 years after surgery (November 2006).

It was observed that moderate pain reappeared among the pain-free patients in 28 and 23% after 1-1.5 and 2-2.5 years, respectively. Of those patients with moderate pain at 3 months, 39 and 49% reported 'no pain' at 1-1.5 and 2-2.5 years, respectively, after surgery. A worsening from moderate pain to severe pain was reported by 22% of patients after 1-1.5 years and by 15% of patients after 2-2.5 years. Hernia recurrence (n = 3) was observed only in patients with increased pain. All nine patients with severe pain at 3 months reported less pain, but only one was pain-free at 2-2.5 years after surgery.

The study shows that a significant proportion of the patients developed pain later than 3 months after the operation. It further points to a difference in pain evolvement in patients with moderate pain and those with severe postoperative pain at 3 months. Pain can increase in intensity from moderate to severe, both with and without the presence of a clinical recurrence.