Introduction: The purpose of this article is to contribute information to the interpretation of the feasibility and outcomes regarding open, laparoscopic and robotic strategies of radical prostatectomy in patients with previous synthetic mesh inguinal hernia repair.
Materials and methods: A bibliographic search covering the period from January 1980 to September 2012 was conducted in PubMed, MEDLINE and EMBASE. Database searches yielded 28 references. This analysis is based on the eleven studies that fulfilled the predefined criteria.
Results: A total of 7,497 patients were included. In the study group, there were 462 patients. The surgical prostatectomy techniques were open in five studies, laparoscopic in three and robotic in the remaining three. The control group consisted in 7,035 patients. The comparison of the open procedure performed in patients with a previous mesh herniorrhaphy and controls shows that the number of lymph nodes removed resulted significantly lower and hospital stay with catheterization time results statistically longer. The comparison of the laparoscopic procedure does not evidence a statistically significant difference in terms of blood loss, operative time and catheterization time, while the comparison with the robotic group could not be performed for the lack of data.
Conclusion: All patients need an adequate informed consent regarding the multitude of aspects which may be influenced by the mesh such as the possibility of hernia recurrence, mesh infection, need for mesh explantation, possibility of mesh erosion into the bowel or bladder, bladder neck contractures or postoperative urinary incontinence and a compromised nodal staging.