19 February 2011

Inguinal hernia

On Friday I assisted a laparoscopic bilateral inguinal hernia repair. For those of you uncertain where the inguinal area is, feel your hip bones at the bottom of your stomach. Draw a line from each hipbone to where your pubic hair starts. That's roughly the location of your inguinal ligament.

The surgery provided the best view of that anatomy of the lower anterior abdominal wall I have seen to date. Better than anatomy lab without question. I can't find a phenomenal photo of it, but this one isn't bad. There is a normal weak point in the abdominal wall in that region, called Hesselbach's triangle (the HT in the picture). The vessel that borders it is called the inferior epigastric (not labeled) and a hernia medial (in HT) is called a direct inguinal hernia whereas a hernia lateral to the vessel is called indirect (through the internal inguinal ring, labeled IIR in the picture). Two important anatomic regions lie near Hesselbach's triangle, making the surgery technically quite challenging. My attending affectionally refers to these as the triangle of doom (inferior, where the femoral vessels run) and the triangle of pain (lateral, where the genitofemoral nerve runs). During the surgery he would constantly yell out which triangle we were near when our instruments got too close (which was often, it's a tiny space). "Watch out for DOOM!" "Beware PAIN!"

It was a quick, interesting case to observe; a good start to the morning. It was followed by (yet another) anterior abdominal wall reconstrution.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi. I'm a medical student. In an exam there was one question about laparoscopic view of an indirect inguinal hernia. I got it wrong but now I understand what it is as I see your picture here. Thanks, it was helpful.