A pregnant woman with a surgical site infection after mesh repair of an abdominal wall incisional hernia: a case report

BACKGROUND: Surgical meshes are widely used in incisional hernia repair. However, there are no reports of pregnancies complicated by infection of surgical meshes used for hernia repair. This is the first case report of a pregnant woman who experienced surgical site infection associated with surgical mesh used for repair of an abdominal wall incisional hernia. CASE PRESENTATION: We report a case of a 41-year-old pregnant Japanese woman with surgical site infection after mesh repair of an abdominal wall incisional hernia. She was diagnosed with an abdominal wall incisional hernia at 3 months after her third cesarean section, and she underwent an operation of hernia repair with use of monofilament polypropylene mesh 7 months after the third cesarean section. However, a surgical site infection associated with surgical mesh occurred. During antibiotic treatment, she was found to be pregnant. She was referred to our hospital at 13 weeks and 2 days of gestation. The surgeons removed the infected mesh at 16 weeks and 3 days of gestation. Neither the hernia nor infection at the surgical site recurred throughout pregnancy. We planned a cesarean section using a transverse uterine fundal incision method with an upper abdominal incision. The patient delivered a 2478-g healthy female infant. CONCLUSIONS: The present report shows that removal of mesh can safely control surgical site infection during pregnancy.