Attendance at a pain clinic with severe chronic pain after open and laparoscopic inguinal hernia repairs

Background: The aim was to compare the frequency of severe chronic pain that required attendance at a pain clinic after open and laparoscopic inguinal hernia repairs. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of 7999 patients who underwent inguinal hernia repair between January 1994 and December 2001. The definition of severe chronic pain was pain related to inguinal hernia surgery that was bad enough for the patient to seek further medical help and be referred to the specialist pain clinic after exclusion of surgically correctable pathology such as hernia recurrence. Results: During the study there were 7153 open repairs and 846 laparoscopic repairs. Sixty-nine patients (1.0 per cent) were referred to the pain clinic a median of 16.9 (range 5.1-69.4) months after open hernia repair. Three patients (0.4 per cent) were referred a median of 16.5 (range 7.3-21.5) months after laparoscopic hernia repair (P = 0.045). Conclusion: Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair was associated with a significantly lower frequency of attendance at the pain clinic with severe chronic pain.