Laparoscopic treatment of inguinal hernia – TOM (transabdominal onlay mesh)

Aim: To present experience and results from application of the transabdominal onlay mesh (TOM) approach in treatment of inguinal hernia.
Material and methods: In the Centre of Mini-invasive Surgery, Hospital Podlesi, Tøinec, laparoscopically treated inguinal hernia has been performed since October 1992. Up to December 2004, 5203 patients with 5727 inguinal hernias were operated on. From January 1999 to December 2004, we performed the TOM procedure for 3878 inguinal hernias on 3476 patients (367 bilateral cases).
Results: In the case of unilateral inguinal hernia the average operation length was 21.4 min and in the case of bilateral inguinal hernia it was 31.5 min. The percentage of complications was 1.263% (perioperative 0.284% and postoperative 0.979%). The average age of patients was 51.3 years (17 to 91 years). There were 87.8% males and 12.2% females. In the programme of 1-day surgery, 185 patients were included.
Conclusions: We are convinced that the TOM method is essential in laparoscopic treatment of inguinal hernia and it will be applied more frequently when new prosthetics are developed.