Hepatic cirrhosis and groin hernia: binomial or dichotomy? Our experience with a safe surgical treatment protocol.

Hepatitis B and C are endemic in the Campania region of Italy, and as a result there are many patients with hepatitis-related cirrhosis. The medical community is therefore faced with a series of issues which must be dealt with and which are especially relevant to various areas of surgery. Abdominal wall hernias occur very frequently in cirrhotic patients, and hepatic cirrhosis has always been the harbinger of a negative outcome in patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair. The aim of this study, conducted on 52 cirrhotic patients who underwent inguinal hernioplasty, was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of surgical treatment when certain parasurgical measures are used. These measures and the notes we inserted in our surgical protocol include the following: short-term antibiotic prophylaxis, perioperative infusion of concentrated platelets, not opening the hernia sac, application of human fibrin glue, elastic compression. All patients were treated according to the same protocol and the data was analysed using the statistics software EPI INFO 3.5.