Incidence of abdominal hernias in service members, active component, U.S. Armed Forces, 2005-2014

From 1 January 2005 through 31 December 2014, a total of 87,480 incident diagnoses of the five types of abdominal hernia (incidence rate 63.3 cases per 10,000 person-years) were documented in the health records of 72,404 active component service members. The overall incidence rate of inguinal hernias among males was six times the rate among females. However, incidence rates of femoral, ventral/incisional, and umbilical hernias were higher among females than males. During the 10-year interval, annual incidence rates for most of the five types of hernia trended downward, but rates increased for umbilical hernias in both males and females and for ventral/ incisional hernias among females. For most types of hernia, the incidence rates tended to be higher among the older age groups. Health records documented 35,624 surgical procedures whose descriptions corresponded to the types of hernia diagnoses in the service members. Most repair procedures were performed in outpatient settings. The proportion of surgical procedures performed via laparoscopy increased during the period, but the majority of operations were open procedures. The limitations to the generalizability of the findings in this study are discussed.