Chronic pain after inguinal hernia repair has become a major concern. Although tension-free Lichtenstein technique is used and new lightweight meshes have been developed, still up to 40 % of patients complain of some kind of pain even one year after surgery. The necessity of mesh-fixation using sutures, could be causative. However, current data do not provide evidence whether suture fixation in Lichtenstein repair might be the reason for chronic postoperative pain.

A newly developed selfgrip-mesh enables sutureless fixation of the mesh in open inguinal hernia repair. Hereby a polypropylene mesh is combined with a resorbable polylactic-acid gripping system. Thereby the rate of chronic postoperative pain could be decreased.

Two techniques of inguinal hernia repair will be evaluated:

1. open anterior mesh repair using conventional Lichtenstein technique (sutures for mesh-fixation)
2. open anterior mesh repair using a selfgrip mesh (polylactic-acid gripping system for mesh fixation)

Postoperative pain will be evaluated by visual analog scale and Mc Gill pain questionaire at the 10th day, as well as 3 and 15 months postoperatively.

Inclusion Criteria:

• primary unilateral inguinal hernia
• 18 years and older

Exclusion Criteria:

• bilateral hernia
• recurrent hernia
• incarcerated hernia
• malignant disease within the last 5 years
• not able to understand the questionaire