Mesh infection in cases of polypropylene mesh hernioplasty

Mesh hernioplasty is the most common surgery for hernia repair with Polypropylene mesh as the preferred one. But the use of synthetic prosthesis is associated with the inherited risk of developing a prosthetic infection that may manifest even after a very long time as subtle symptoms in the form of fever, myalgia, erythema of overlying skin and in some cases as chronic discharging sinus. With this in view a systematic prospective observational study has been carried out to estimate the incidence of mesh infections, to identify the type of associated organism and to study the outcome of the cases with hernioplasty using Propylene mesh.

Mesh hernioplasty performed in all adult patients using propylene mesh exclusively on 161 males and 20 females were considered in this prospective observational study carried out for 3 years (2016-2019) at tertiary care centre and teaching hospital in India. A standard size of the propylene mesh and well laid procedures were used for surgery as well as post operative care, identification and culture of microorganism. The patients were followed up to identify any symptoms of SSI or mesh infection. The entire data was statistically analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS ver 21.0, IBM Corporation, USA) for MS Windows.

Out of 181 cases, the mesh contamination was observed in 59 cases while total cases of mesh infection were nine (09), which include 07 males and 02 females. The cases that developed infection were of mostly groin hernias. The cases commonly presenting with erythema, seroma and surgical wound dehiscence with identification of methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) in the few samples of the wound discharge were managed conservatively and none of the cases had to undergo mesh explantation. Of the numerous factors viz. age, sex, associated co-morbidities, educational status, socio-economic status, duration of surgery and expertise of the operating surgeon, the two factors viz. duration of surgery and the mesh contamination were found to be associated with mesh infection in a statistically significant way.

The incidence of mesh infection was observed in 4.97% of total 181 cases. To the best of knowledge, this seems to be the first prospective observational carried out in this country. Of the numerous factors studied, the duration of surgery and mesh contamination were the factors found to have statistical significance on the incidence of mesh infection. Although a clear picture to differentiate surgical site infection from acute mesh infection is yet to be obtained, the study provided better understanding of the management as no mesh explantation was required in either of the cases.