Abdominal closure & incisional hernias in kidney transplantatation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The impact of abdominal wall closure technique on incidence of incisional hernia in kidney transplantation
IRAS ID
241729
Contact name
David van Dellen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Incisional hernias, or swellings of the abdominal scar after surgery, remain problematic especially after transplant surgery. This is because they can cause complications, including trapping of bowel or the transplant. This can cause life threatening emergencies but is at the very least unsightly and uncomfortable for the patient. Transplant patients are especially likely to develop hernias because of the diseases causing the renal failure and the drugs that they take to dampen the immune system. In phase 1 we will look at the incidence of hernias in our transplant population over the last 5 years. There is evidence from other surgery that the stitching methods that are used to close the wounds might decrease the risk of surgical hernias. This is achieved by placing smaller and more numerous sutures (stitches) in the wound to increase the strength of the repair. However, this has never been tested formally in transplant where it may provide significant benefit. In phase 2 of this study we intend to do some initial investigation of whether the smaller stitches provide benefit over more traditional methods currently used.
The study will be undertaken at Manchester Royal Infirmary, a tertiary level transplant centre.We will include adult patients undergoing their first kidney transplant in the study. We will look at early complications after surgery during their stay in hospital and also the rate of hernia formation later during their outpatient follow-up.
We will take extra blood samples at the time of the transplant and then again at 6 months and a year later and if patients are admitted for hernia repair.
We will also take small tissue samples from the operation field at the time of transplantation and again at the time of hernia repair to analyse how the stitch method impacts on the healing components within the scar.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0649
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jan 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion