Genetic factors contributing to the development of inguinal hernias – a narrative review

Introduction and aim. Inguinal hernias are one of the major disorders in the field of general and visceral surgery and can be viewed as multifactorial diseases. Although the molecular mechanism that led to predistortion to inguinal herniation still remain unclear, is well known that defects leading to improper closure of the inguinal canal during fetal development and mechanisms contributing to weaker muscles of the abdominal wall can greatly increase the risk of developing the latter disease. Material and methods. A literature search was performed in all major electronic databases using keywords and Boolean operators to retrieve all available literature related to the topic. Due to the narrative nature of the review, there were no specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Analysis of the literature. Genetic factors, undoubtedly, can interfere with these mechanisms and therefore play major role in developing hernias. To this end, the present narrative review provides an overview of genes with altered expression and genetic polymorphisms associated with inguinal herniation. Moreover, the results of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) exploring susceptible genetic loci associated with the disease have been reported. Conclusion. Nevertheless, more case-control studies and GWAS need to be conducted in different ethnic populations so as to provide better insights into the topic.