Pre-peritoneal Drainage Versus No Drainage After Totally Extra-peritoneal Hernioplasty for Inguinal Hernia - a Randomised Controlled Study

Inguinal hernia is a common disease and causes significant morbidity if left untreated. With the advances of laparoscopic approach of extra-peritoneal hernioplasty, it significantly reduces the post-operative pain and lead to a better quality of life with higher acceptance to patients.However, similar to traditional Litchenstein approach, post operative seroma formation is still a common problem encountered after surgery. Numerous method has been described to reduce chance of seroma formation, however, none was proven to be effective except pre-peritoneal drainage. There are currently 2 large retrospective non-randomized cohort study to evaluate the effectiveness of preperitoneal drainage available for reference. We therefore study the feasibility and efficacy of preperitoneal drainage with large scale randomized trial.

Patient fulfill inclusion criteria and consent to surgery and study will be recruited. A standardized pre-peritoneal dissection and mesh placement will be adopted. Immediately before deflation of pre-peritoneal space, randomization will be performed by calling research assistant for study group using computer generated code. Drain will be placed for 23 hours after operation and ultrasonography will be performed immediately after removal of drain. USG will be repeated at post-operative 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year after surgery. For non-drain group, a fake drain will be attach to the skin of the wound to achieve double blinding to patients and assessors. In addition to seroma, patient demographics and secondary outcome including post-operative pain score, discomfort, foreign body sensation, patient satisfaction, infection, recurrence, etc will be studied.