[Preoperative conditioning and surgical strategies for treatment of complex abdominal wall hernias]

The successful treatment of complex abdominal wall hernias requires individualized and if necessary interdisciplinary treatment concepts. Due to the high potential for abdominal and cardiopulmonary complications, specialized centers with a high level of expertise and experience should undertake the care of patients. Prehabilitation and optimization of hernia-specific risk factors and comorbidities play an essential role in the treatment algorithm. Preoperative conditioning prior to surgery can be crucial for success. Bariatric surgery for weight loss and administration of botulinum toxin A in the lateral abdominal wall for stretching the musculature to provide myofascial advancement and enlargement of the torso diameter are parts of such strategies. The preoperative progressive pneumoperitoneum has its justification in massive evisceration, facilitates repositioning of the viscera and helps the patient to slowly adapt to the postoperatively changed abdominal pressure conditions. From a surgical technical point of view, the following principle should apply: "mesh augmentation comes before defect bridging". This means preference should be given to a morphological functional restoration of the myofascicular abdominal wall compared to procedures that merely bridge abdominal wall defects based on meshing. The retromuscular preperitoneal mesh strengthening in the sense of a sublay technique is the gold standard. This can be extended to anterior or posterior component separation techniques in order to achieve a reduction of tension to the midline and/or to achieve enlargement of the space for mesh placement.