"Tension free" hernia repair?

"Greg Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've seen several sites on the web that advertise "tension-
free" mesh repair of hernias, in which the mesh is eased
into place without stapling or suturing. Supposedly this
helps reduce the likelihood of recurrence.

In a few weeks my surgeon is going to attempt to re-
repair a failed hernia repair he did last September. I'd
had an "Oh, no!" feeling the first time around, when he
told me after I woke up that he'd done a traditional suture-
up of an incisional hernia he described as a "big
critter." I had read on the web that the recurrence rate
for traditional suture repairs was as high as 40% (he had
told me 15%), so I wasn't completely astonished when I
got a new hernia in the same neighborhood as the old one
-- about three inches above my navel, the result of a
trocar insertion during a laparoscopic appendectomy five
years ago.

This time my surgeon says he's going to do a laparoscopic
repair, with mesh, but because I've been reading these pie-in-the-
sky web sites that tout "tension-free" mesh placement, I
had another "Oh, no!" feeling when he told me he planned
to staple the mesh into place. The recurrence rate for
this procedure, he's telling me, is around 2%.

So my question is, should I try to rally my ebbing faith
in my surgeon, or should I be making a pilgrimage to one
of these "cutting edge" (pardon the pun) hernia centers? I
must say that the two web sites I've seen so far that
promote the "tension free" technique look rather cheesy,
as if they couldn't afford a good web designer. But you
can't judge a book by its cover, etc.

State of the art for repair of an incisional hernia is to
use Gore-Tex mesh laparoscopically placed inside the body
and stapled to the abdominal wall from the inside. The
recurrence rate for such a hernia repair is low - I agree
that it's about 2%. Your surgeon's plan is the correct one
and is more effective than placing the mesh using the "tension-
free" gimmicks you describe.

HMc

"Howard McCollister" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

State of the art for repair of an incisional hernia is to
use Gore-Tex mesh laparoscopically placed inside the body
and stapled to the abdominal wall from the inside. The
recurrence rate for such a hernia repair is low - I agree
that it's about 2%. Your surgeon's plan is the correct one
and is more effective than placing the mesh using the "tension-
free" gimmicks you describe.

HMc

Thanks for the prompt and authoritative reply. It helps.

Greg