Open surgery for groin hernia
Traditional or open surgical repair requires a cut or incision. Although the skin incision can be just 10 cm or so, skin & muscles and tendon are cut to get to the hernia. Groin hernia surgery has a long and amazing history. Modern repair of groin hernia evolved as open surgery over the last 100 years. Famous surgeons such as Bassini, Shouldice and Stoppa each pioneered big changes in the open technique.
In the 1970's Lichtenstein from Los Angelos introduced a new groin hernia operation that used mesh routinely. It did not need the muscles or tendons to be pulled together and was tension free. This open operation only became popular in Australia around the year 2000 but is now widely used.
Open surgery for incisional hernia
Many incisional hernia are still best repaired by open surgery. This is because of hernia size, previous surgery or the risk of bowel damage.
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Once the hernia has been defined the hole will be closed. This may be able to be done with sutures bringing the muscle and tendon abdominal wall together. It may be stronger to reinforce this with mesh placed either inside the abdomen of on top of the repair.
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If the defect is large it will be repaired with mesh.
A short history of hernia surgery
The surgery of hernia's has a rather interesting history dating back 2000 years. The 'moderm era started around 1900.