To explore the influence of iliohypogastric neurectomy on postoperative chronic pain of inguinal hernia.

A retrospective study was conducted on 640 cases of inguinal hernia patients in Guangdong people's hospital between July 2014 to July 2016 who accepted randomized iliohypogastric neurectomy during Lichtenstein tension-free inguinal hernia repair. Numeric rating scale (NRS) was adopted to conduct a comparison of postoperative pain degree between patients accepting iliohypogastric neurectomy and those not.

A total of 640 patients with inguinal hernia was recorded including 43 females and 597 males. 348 patients received iliohypogastric neurectomy, while the rest 292 cases did not. Based on the overall statistical analysis, the average operation time for experimental group was (50±12.5) minutes and the length of hospitalization was (1.8±0.6) days; the control group had an average operation time as (49±14.3) minutes and hospitalization time as (1.9±0.8) days. No statistical differences were observed in average operation time and length of hospitalization (P>0.05). The Postoperative follow-up time was 6 months. For patients received the neurectomy, 214 cases scored 0 point in NRS scale, 53 scored 1, 54 scored 2, 25 scored 3, 2 scored 4 and none scored 5 points or above. Comparatively, for those patients not receiving the neurectomy, 93 cases scored 0 point in NRS scale, 86 scored 1, 32 scored 2, 68 scored 3, 9 scored 4, and 4 cases reported above 5 points pain degree. No one scored 6 points or above. If 3 points was set as a mark, the amount of patients ≤3 points was 346 and only 2 above 3 points in experimental group while number of patients ≤3 points was 279 and 13 above 3 points in control group, for which a significant difference was indicated (P<0.05 for accurate chi-square test and Fisher test).

Iliohypogastric neurectomy during hernia repair showed an obvious effect in reduction of NRS score and reduced chronic pain without increasing operation time and hospitalization.