Pereira Rodríguez, José AntonioArgudo Aguirre, NuriaGonzález Castillo, Ana MaríaMembrilla Fernández, EstelaSancho Insenser, JuanGrande Posa, LuísPera Roman, MiguelPereira Rodríguez, José Antonio2022-03-212022-03-212021Bravo-Salva A, Argudo-Aguirre N, González-Castillo AM, Membrilla-Fernandez E, Sancho-Insenser JJ, Grande-Posa L et al. Long-term follow-up of prophylactic mesh reinforcement after emergency laparotomy. A retrospective controlled study. BMC Surg. 2021 May 18;21(1):243. DOI: 10.1186/s12893-021-01243-x1471-2482http://hdl.handle.net/10230/52741Background: Prevention of incisional hernias with a prophylactic mesh in emergency surgery is controversial. The present study aimed to analyze the long-term results of prophylactic mesh used for preventing incisional hernia after emergency midline laparotomies. Methods: This study was a registered (NCT04578561) retrospective analysis of patients who underwent an emergency midline laparotomy between January 2009 and July 2010 with a follow-up period of longer than 2 years. Long-term outcomes and risk factors for the development of incisional hernias between patients who received a prophylactic reinforcement mesh (Group M) and suture (Group S) were compared. Results: From an initial 266 emergency midline laparotomies, 187 patients were included. The median follow-up time was 64.4 months (SD 35). Both groups had similar characteristics, except for a higher rate of previous operations (62 vs. 43.2%; P = 0.01) and operation due to a revision laparotomy (32.5 vs.13%; P = 0.02) in the M group. During follow-up, 29.9% of patients developed an incisional hernia (Group S 36.6% vs. Group M 14.3%; P = 0.002). Chronic mesh infections were diagnosed in 2 patients, but no mesh explants were needed, and no patient in the M group developed chronic pain. Long-term risk factors for incisional hernia were as follows: smoking (HR = 2.47; 95% CI 1.318-4.624; P = 0.05), contaminated surgery (HR = 2.98; 95% CI 1.142-7.8; P = 0.02), surgical site infection (SSI; HR = 3.83; 95% CI 1.86-7.86; P = 0.001), and no use of prophylactic mesh (HR = 5.09; 95% CI 2.1-12.2; P = 0.001). Conclusion: Incidence of incisional hernias after emergency midline laparotomies is high and increases with time. High-risk patients, contaminated surgery, and surgical site infection (SSI) benefit from mesh reinforcement. Prophylactic mesh use is safe and feasible in emergencies with a low long-term complication rate.application/pdfeng© A. Bravo-Salva et al. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Hèrnia -- PrevencióAbdomen -- CirurgiaMalla quirúrgicainfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12893-021-01243-xinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess