Hernia Research Paper

Hernia is classically defined as an abnormal protrusion of an organ or tissue through a defect in its surrounding walls. The world hernia is derived from the Greek word 'hernios' meaning 'a bud'. Abdominal wall hernias are common with a reported prevalence of approximately 1.7% for all ages and almost 4% in the population aged 45 years and over. Data from the National Health Service Information Centre, Episode Statistics for England (HES) and information services division (ISD) Scotland between 2011 to 2012 reported over 110,000 abdominal wall hernia repairs (Legutko, Pach et al. 2008).

1.1 History of Hernia and Hernia repair

Hernia (Greek kele/hernios--bud or offshoot) was present in the human history from its very beginning. Most essential

The procedure was termed ‘gastrorrhaphy’ originating from the Greek ‘gastir’ meaning abdomen and ‘rhaphy’ meaning suture. A century later, Aelius Galenus, a Roman of Greek origin and arguably the most prominent physician of the Greco-Roma period, provided a detailed description of mass closure of the abdominal wall (Sanders, Kingsnorth 2012a).
It seems that Galen was aware of the risk of incisional hernia following abdominal surgery and he describes in detail paramedian incisions, in order to prevent a hernia from developing. The works of Galen were later translated into Latin and helped to form the basis of modern surgery (Sanders, Kingsnorth 2012a)(Legutko, Pach et al. 2008). The term “prosthesis” is derived from the Greek “to place before”. Gold wire was used as suture followed by the use of silver strands woven into filigrees for the first hernia prosthesis by ancient Greeks.

The middle ages

Surgical repair developed along three lines: 1. Simple laparoplasty: suturing. 2. Auto or heteroplasty: grafting. 3. Alloplasty: the use of prosthetics (Sanders, Kingsnorth 2012a).

The earliest use of man-made prosthetic reinforcements for hernia repair was the placement of silver wire coils on the floor of the inguinal canal by Phillips in 1894. This concept was expanded by the German surgeons Witzel and Geopel, who utilised for hernia repair hand-made silver wire filigrees, an open arrangement of fine silver wire into a prosthesis for hernia repair. The filigree became the first prosthetic 'mesh' to be routinely incorporated into surgical armamentarium for repair of difficult or recurrent hernias, and many variations of the silver wire and filigree were developed (Bendavid, Abrahamson et al.