• Lauren V Huckaby, Esmaeel Reza Dadashzadeh, Robert Handzel, Alexa Kacin, Matthew R Rosengart, and Dirk J van der Windt.
• Department of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
• J. Am. Coll. Surg. 2020 Nov 1; 231 (5): 536-545.e4.

BackgroundIncisional hernia develops in up to 20% of patients undergoing abdominal operations. We sought to identify characteristics associated with poor outcomes after acute incisional hernia incarceration.Study DesignWe performed a retrospective cohort study of adult patients with incisional hernias undergoing elective repair or with acute incarceration between 2010 and 2017. The primary end point was 30-day mortality. Logistic regression was used to determine adjusted odds associated with 30-day mortality. The American College of Surgeons Surgical Risk Calculator was used to estimate outcomes had these patients undergone elective repair.ResultsA total of 483 patients experienced acute incarceration; 30-day mortality was 9.52%. Increasing age (adjusted odds ratio 1.05; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.08) and bowel resection (adjusted odds ratio 3.18; 95% CI, 1.45 to 6.95) were associated with mortality. Among those with acute incarceration, 231 patients (47.9%) had no documentation of an earlier surgical evaluation and 252 (52.2%) had been evaluated but had not undergone elective repair. Among patients 80 years and older, 30-day mortality after emergent repair was high (22.9%) compared with estimated 30-day mortality for elective repair (0.73%), based on the American College of Surgeons Surgical Risk Calculator. Estimated mortality was comparable with observed elective repair mortality (0.82%) in an age-matched cohort. Similar mortality trends were noted for patients younger than 60 years and aged 60 to 79 years.ConclusionsComparison of predicted elective repair and observed emergent repair mortality in patients with acute incarceration suggests that acceptable outcomes could have been achieved with elective repair. Almost one-half of acute incarceration patients had no earlier surgical evaluation, therefore, targeted interventions to address surgical referral can potentially result in fewer incarceration-related deaths.Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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