A comparison of post operative pain and hospital stay between Lichtenstein’s repair and Laparoscopic Transabdominal Preperitoneal (TAPP) repair of inguinal hernia: A randomized controlled trial

Objective: to compare the open lichtenstein repair and laparoscopic mesh repair for direct inguinal hernias in terms of immediate post operative pain and length of hospital stay. methods: this randomized control trial was conducted at benazir bhutto hospital rawalpindi from january 2009 to june 2010. all patients presenting in the surgical opd with direct inguinal hernia, asa i/ii, were randomly divided in two equal groups. group-i, patients underwent lichtenstein’s repair and group-ii had hernioplasty by laparoscopic method (tapp). post operative pain intensity assessed by vas and hospital stay measured in hours. results: a total 60 patients of direct inguinal hernia were studied. the mean age was 61.48±7. the range of postoperative pain experienced was 5.55 as per vas among all patients. in group-i (open hernioplasty) majority of patients (53.33%, n=16) experience severe type of pain where as in group-ii, moderate severity of pain was reported by large number of patients (63.34%, n=19). the mean post operative pain intensity as per vas was 6.23 in group-i and 4.43 in group-ii patients. the mean length of hospital stay was slightly less (35.10 hrs) in group-i as compared to group-ii (38.70 hrs). conclusion: there is definitely less post operative pain after laparoscopic repair but hospital stay is same in both the procedures but laparoscopic procedure does increase the cost.