ABSTRACT
Laparoscopic incisional and ventral hernioplasty (LIVH) was first described in 1993.1 The concepts of this technique are equivalent to the tension-free repair of inguinal hernias, which has become popular in the past two decades. The open tissue repair of incisional hernias has a recurrence rate of 25-52 per cent. The use of a prosthetic biomaterial to repair these fascial defects lowers the recurrence rate to 11-23 per cent. The rate of recurrence with the laparoscopic approach has been reported to be from 1 to 9 per cent.2-6 It is important to note that in most of these reports, the results included the early experiences of the authors as well as the repairs that occurred with the knowledge gained from that experience (see Chapter 21).
