Abstract

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a birth defect involving improper formation of the diaphragm, leading to the protrusion of abdominal organs into the chest cavity. The CDH is classified depending on the location of the defect as postero-lateral, central and anterior. Depending on the side, it is classified as right, left and bilateral. A majority of CDH defects are postero-lateral defects and are commonly referred to as Bochdalek hernias (BH). Herein, the authors present the case of a 29 years old male patient diagnosed with a large left recurrent Bochdalek hernia. He was operated for it in another hospital by another surgeon 5 months back. That previous surgical intervention was initially planned via laparoscopy. But, intraoperatively, it had to be converted to open surgery due to technical difficulty. Post the first surgery, after about 1.5 months, he started developing pain in the back of his left chest. However, due to financial constraints, he did not seek any consultation with anyone at that time. The authors successfully performed a laparoscopic repair of this difficult condition. The rationale for reporting this case is to underscore the relative ease of a laparoscopic over open surgical intervention, on the ‘roof’ of the abdomen and also the lower chest. Also, it hopes to highlight that laparoscopic repair of BH is feasible even in challenging, difficult and recurrent scenarios, in an advanced setup backed up by the requisite surgical expertise.

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