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Updated: Jul 17, 2026
Use of a Rat Model to Study Ventral Abdominal Hernia Repair
Published on: October 2, 2017
Shifting the Goalpost in Ventral Hernia Care: 5-year Outcomes after Ventral Hernia Repair with Poly-4-hydroxybutyrate
Ankoor A Talwar1, Nikhita J Perry1, Phoebe B McAuliffe1
1Division of Plastic Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Health System, 3400 Civic Center Boulevard, 14th Floor South Tower, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Purpose:
Ventral hernia repair (VHR) can be augmented with biosynthetic poly-4-hydroxybutryate mesh (P4HB). Long-term outcomes, including quality of life outcomes, after VHR with P4HB mesh are not well established. Our study sought to assess these outcomes 5 years after repair.
Methods:
Patients who received VHR using P4HB by the senior author between 01/2015 and 09/2017 were retrospectively identified. Patients were prospectively interviewed for quality of life assessment using the Hernia-Related Quality-of-Life Survey (HerQLes) and Abdominal Hernia-Q (AHQ) and screened for recurrence. Those who screened positive were asked to follow up in clinic to confirm recurrence. Both 5-year quality of life and recurrence were univariately assessed with patient and operative factors.
Results:
51 patients met inclusion criteria. 43 patients completed 5-year quality of life assessment (84.3% response rate). Quality of life scores at all postoperative time periods were greater than preoperative scores. Further, quality of life at 5 years is greater than that assessed 0-2 years following VHR. Most patients achieve their best quality of life in the 5-year time period. Thirty-five patients had clinical follow-up in the 5-year time period, 7 experienced recurrences (20% recurrence rate). There was no difference in 5-year quality of life assessment between those who had a recurrence and those who did not.
Conclusion:
Patient quality of life following VHR with P4HB improves immediately and continues to improve 5 years following repair. There are no differences in quality of life with onset of recurrence. Quality of life should be the primary outcome of success in VHR.
