Aim : To compare the effectiveness and safety of Laparoscopic Totally Extra Peritoneal repair versus Open Pre–Peritoneal mesh repair in inguinal hernia.

Materials and methods: A prospective, randomized, comparative study was conducted on 100 patients of inguinal hernia in the Surgery department, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Delhi from January 2015 to December 2016. Patients were randomly assigned to two groups. Fifty Patients of group A underwent Laparoscopic Totally Extra Peritoneal (TEP) Mesh repair and those of group B underwent Open Preperitoneal Mesh repair. Various evaluation parameters were recorded for both groups and data was analysed using SPSS. For qualitative data, Chi–square and fisher exact test were used; student’s t test or Mann Whitney U tests were used to compare quantitative variables. p value less than 0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: Laparoscopic TEP repair is better than open pre–peritoneal repair in terms of post–operative pain score (3.4 ± 1.34 vs 4.14 ± 0.86), duration of hospital stay (2.14 days vs 4.24 days), time to return to normal activity (5.28 vs 8.16 days) and time to resume work (11.2 vs 16.16 days).

Conclusions: TEP approach is superior to open pre–peritoneal approach in terms of post–operative pain, wound infections, cosmesis, duration of hospital stay, time to return to normal activity and work.