Background: Laparoscopic totally extraperitoneal (TEP) inguinal hernia repair (IHR) reduces risk of injury to intraperitoneal structures. Balloon dissection is more costly and has theoretical risk of injury to the surrounding structures compared with telescopic dissection (TD). This study aims to evaluate the learning curve (LC) for TEP IHR with TD of a single surgeon. Methods: This is a 3-year retrospective cohort study from January 2020 to December 2022 on patients who underwent elective laparoscopic TEP unilateral IHR with TD. Exclusion criteria were recurrent inguinal hernia. Cumulative sum (CUSUM) analysis was performed to evaluate the number of cases required to surmount the LC, that is, NLC for operating time (OT) and open conversion. One way analysis of variance was used to perform groupwise comparison. Results: There were 69 patients who underwent laparoscopic TEP unilateral IHR with TD. The median age was 58.0 years (range 24.0-80.0) and body mass index was 23.0 (range 18.6-30.0). Majority of the hernia was indirect (n = 48, 69.6%). The median OT was 70 minutes (range 35-210). Three cases (4.3%) had open conversion. One-year recurrence was 4.2% (n = 1/24). CUSUM analysis showed improvement in OT after the eighth case. However, this was followed by multiple inflection points with no apparent stabilization in OT. Pairwise comparison showed a decrease in OT between cases 18-36 and cases 37-54. There was no incidence of open conversion until the 56th case. Conclusion: Laparoscopic TEP IHR using TD is safe in the absence of a practor. A minimum of 36 cases is required to surmount the initial LC.
Keywords: hernia; laparoscopy; learning curve; minimally invasive surgery; proficiency.