Laparoscopic assisted internal ring suturing (lairs): initial result in a series of girls with inguinal hernia, retrospectively reviewed

Introduction: Hernia in children is a common congenital disease. The gold standard treatment is open herniotomy. However, minimal access surgery is being widely used and the results are being compared to open surgery. We introduce a modification of percutaneous internal ring suturing (PIRS) for repairing hernias in girls. We also propose the name for this modification as Laparoscopic Assisted Internal Ring Suturing (LAIRS)
Material & Method: This is a retrospective study in which LAIRS was done in 20 girls with 25 hernias. All girls < 12 years were included in the study. They were followed up till 6 months.
Results: The age ranged from 4 months to 8 years, with a mean age of 4.2 years. None of the cases were converted to open and there was no intra-operative event in any of the cases. We encountered one recurrence (4%) due to an accidental removal of the internal ring suture.
Conclusion: LAIRS is a cost effective, safe modification of PIRS and can be applied to the treatment of hernias in girls.