Remodeling and Regenerative Properties of Fully Absorbable Meshes for Abdominal Wall Defect Repair: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Animal Studies

Fully absorbable meshes can repair abdominal wall defects and effectively reduce the incidence of complications, but different types of fully absorbable meshes have different remodeling and regeneration effects. In order to investigate and compare the effects of different fully absorbable meshes on remodeling and regeneration in animals and reduce the biological risk of clinical translation, SYRCLE was adopted to evaluate the methodological quality of the included studies, and GRADE and ConQual were used to evaluate the quality of evidence. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 22 studies related to fully absorbable meshes were included in this systematic review. These results showed that fiber-based synthetic materials and fiber-based natural materials exhibited better restorative and regenerative effects indicated by infiltration and neovascularization, when compared with a porcine acellular dermal matrix. In addition, the human acellular dermal matrix was found to have a similar regenerative effect on the host extracellular matrix and scaffold degradation compared to the porcine acellular dermal matrix, porcine intestinal submucosa, and fiber-based natural materials, but it offered higher tensile strength than the other three. The quality of the evidence in this field was found to be poor. The reasons for downgrading were analyzed, and recommendations for future research included more rigor in study design, more transparency in result reporting, more standardization of animal models and follow-up time for better evaluation of the remodeling and regenerative performance of abdominal wall hernia repair meshes, and less biological risk in clinical translation.