Incisional hernias are a prevalent problem in abdominal surgery and occur in 11% of patients who undergo laparotomy. Primary suture clo-sure of incisional hernias results in a 31%-58% chance of recurrence. The addition of a pros-thetic mesh implant decreases recurrence rates to 8%-10%. Popularized in Europe by Rives and Stoppa, the sublay technique has proven to be very effective, with low recurrence rates (0%-23%) and minimal complications. The pur-pose of the study was to evaluate the experi-ence of a single surgeon at a large tertiary care center performing a modified Rives-Stoppa re-pair for abdominal incisional hernias. To do this, the records of all patients undergoing a modi-fied Rives-Stoppa incisional hernia repair be-tween January 2000 and August 2003 were ret-rospectively reviewed. Outpatient clinic notes, discharge summaries, operative reports, and laboratory data were reviewed for patient demographics, surgical data and postoperative complications. Univariate analysis was per-formed in order to identify predictors for recur-rence. During the study period, 83 patients un-derwent a modified Rives-Stoppa incisional hernia repair. Nineteen patients were excluded due to incomplete medical records. No patients required postoperative exploration for an in-tra-abdominal catastrophe. Twenty-five percent (n=16) of patients had a complication as a result of the hernia repair. Only two patients (3.1%) developed recurrent incisional hernias. History of diabetes (p=0.007) and benign prostatic hy-perplasia (p=0.000) were the only significant predictors for recurrence. The results presented here confirm that the modified Rives-Stoppa retromuscular repair is an effective method for the repair of incisional hernias. The complica-tion and recurrence rates compare favorably to results for currently popular alternative tech-niques.
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