ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Emergency inguinal hernia repair remains the commonest operation performed by general surgeons all over the world. The aim of this study was to compare the mean operative time, post-operative pain, wound infection and early recurrence between Desarda's and Darning emergency inguinal hernia repair. METHODS: This is a randomized controlled trial conducted at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. A total of 186 patients of male gender between ages 20-60 years with incarcerated, obstructed and strangulated inguinal hernia were enrolled in the study. Patients with primary and recurrent inguinal hernias were excluded. All patients were randomized to Desarda group (n=93) and Darning group (n=93). RESULTS: Mean operative time in Desarda group was 55.53±6.81 minutes and mean operative time in darning group was 53.06±5.51 minutes (p-value 0.007). Mild to moderate pain was found insignificantly higher in Desarda group 75 (80.6%) as compared to Darning group 66 (71%) (p-value 0.170). Wound infection was found higher in Desarda group 18 (19.4%) as compared to darning group 9 (9.7%) (p-value 0.061). Recurrence was found significantly higher 15 (55.5%) in Darning group as compared to Desarda group 2 (7.4%) (p-value <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: No significant difference was observed in the postoperative pain, wound infection however, significant differences were observed in the mean operative time and recurrence rates.
