The Role of Biologic Mesh in Abdominal Wall Reconstruction: a Systematic Review of the Current Literature

Background: Biologic mesh in the form of allograft or xenograft products have been used in complicated abdominal hernia repair, but few comparative studies exist.

Methods: A systematic review of original incisional hernia studies was conducted to include 2 primary end points: hernia recurrence and surgical site occurrence. Analysis of variance and a Satterthwaite t test compared the devices.

Results: Twenty-nine studies were included in this analysis, which included 1,257 patients. The total number of studies and the total subjects for each device include the following: Permacol (Tissue Science Laboratories, Hampshire, UK) (4/64), Surgisis (Cook Medical, Bloomington, IN) (3/87), and Alloderm (LifeCell, Corp, Branchburg, NJ) (23/1,106). Device-specific recurrence rates and surgical site occurrence rates, respectively, were as follows: Alloderm (20.8%, 31.4%), Permacol (10.9%, 25%), and Surgisis (8.0%, 40.2%). A Satterthwaite t test comparison revealed significantly higher numbers of hernia recurrence (P = .006) and surgical site occurrence (P = .04) when comparing Alloderm with Permacol.

Conclusions: Biologic mesh does play a beneficial role in abdominal wall reconstruction although allograft acellular dermal matrix does have a higher recurrence rate as compared with xenograft products, which limits its current role in hernia repair.