BMJ 1996;312:309 (3 February)

Letters

Laparoscopic versus open repair of inguinal hernia

Paper should have put more emphasis on benefits of laparoscopic repair

EDITOR,--Kate Lawrence and colleagues report excellent early results of their trial comparing laparoscopic with open hernia repair and show that patients prefer laparoscopic repair.1 With only 125 subjects, they found significant benefits in terms of pain scores and quality of life assessments in the early postoperative period after laparoscopic repair. They rightly conclude, however, that the single important criterion for success in hernia repair is the recurrence rate and that a far larger sample will have to be followed up for far longer for this be determined.

It is a pity that the paper and the paragraph on the "This week in BMJ" page place greater emphasis on the increase in minor complications with this form of surgery than on the benefits, even though only one of the seven complications in the patients who had laparoscopic repair (early recurrence . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Randomised controlled trial of laparoscopic versus open repair of inguinal hernia: early results
Kate Lawrence, Douglas McWhinnie, Alex Goodwin, Helen Doll, Andrew Gordon, Alistair Gray, Julian Britton, and Jack Collin
BMJ 1995 311: 981-985. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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