Sarcouncil Journal of Medical Sciences

Abstract: Incisional hernia represents a common wound complication after abdominal surgery. Many factors seem to be associated with its development. Aim of the study: To show the important and most frequent risk factors and their relationship to the occurrence of incisional hernia. Patients and Methods: A cross-sectional study of 80 patients (35 patients were males and 45 were females) admitted in Baghdad teaching hospital / surgical department during the period from April 2013 to January 2015, diagnosed as incisional hernia, history has been taken and physical examination was done for all patients. Data collected from patient’s history, discharging notes, and clinical examination. Data include patient factors and wound factors. The patient’s related factors include: age, obesity, smoking, diabetes mellitus, COAD, malignancy and steroid use. Wound factors include: wound infection, incision type and circumstances of the first surgery whether elective or emergency. Results: Male: female ratio was 1:1.2. Age group between 40-59 years is more affected by incisional hernia which was occurring in 58.8 %. Vertical incisions were more prone for developing incisional hernia in 72.5 % of the cases, while emergency surgery in the first operation occurred in 66.2 %, wound infection in 42.5 %, smoking in 40%, diabetic patients were 22.5% of study population, COAD presented in 20%, malignancy was in 15% and steroid use in 8.8%. There were 12.5% of the patients that were presented with complicated incisional hernia and underwent emergency surgery. Conclusion: Vertical incision and emergency surgery were the more frequent risk factors for incisional hernia in our study. Smoking was statistically significant as a risk factor in incisional hernia so all patients should be advised to stop smoking to decrease the incidence of this potential postoperative complication. By knowing treating these risk factors whenever possible we could reduce the incidence of incisional hernia.