The time profile of groin hernia recurrences

If the pathogeneses of the development of a recurrence varies following the different methods of hernia repair, the time required to develop a recurrence could be expected to vary. The aim of the study was to identify risk factors affecting the time interval between the primary repair and the reoperation.

Data from the Swedish Hernia Register were used. Each year of the 5-year follow-up period was treated as a separate subgroup and merged together into one large group. For each risk factor, we performed a Cox proportional hazard analysis, testing for interactions between the year and the risk factor, with reoperation as the endpoint.

Altogether, 142,578 repairs were recorded, of which 7.7% were performed on women. The mean age of the cohort was 59 years. The overall recurrence rate in the 5-year period was 4.3%. Multivariate analysis showed that recurrence following surgery for recurrent hernia occurred relatively early (P < 0.05).Recurrence also appeared early if postoperative complications were registered (P < 0.05). Recurrence after suture repair or laparoscopic repair appeared relatively early compared to recurrence following open mesh repair (P < 0.05). In a separate analysis, a relatively higher risk for early recurrence was seen for all sutured repairs compared to all mesh repairs (P < 0.05).

The pathogenesis behind the development of recurrence probably differs depending on the technique applied during the hernia repair. The higher proportion of early recurrences following laparoscopic repair, suture repair and recurrent repair may be explained by the high proportion of technical failures.