EMERGENCY INGUINAL HERNIA REPAIR: COMPARISON OF DESARDA’S VERSUS DARNING TECHNIQUE

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 randomized controlled trial was 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). Conclusion: No significant difference was observed in the postoperative pain, wound infection however, significant differences were observed in the mean operative time and recurrence rates. Keywords: Inguinal Hernia Repair; Desarda’s; Darning