Abstract
We report a rare case of postoperative pain caused by the staples used in hernia repair. At our institution that was founded in 1995, we have performed more than 900 laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair procedures, of which the present case represents the only case of recognized postoperative pain caused by a staple. Our patient, a 46-year-old man, underwent totally extraperitoneal repair of an inguinal hernia. He was discharged 3 days after surgery without any complications. However, 2 weeks after the repair, he complained of right lower abdominal pain that was unresponsive to medication. As the pain was localized to one area, short-term pain relief was achieved via Anapeine injection of local anesthetics at the trigger point. However, at 5 months after surgery, we removed a non-absorbable staple from the operative site, and the intractable pain alleviated. At present, we use absorbable staples, and therefore, postoperative pain related to staple use is not reported. However, even absorbable staples persist for 1 year, and can thus cause intractable postoperative pain in certain cases.
