[Results of surgical quality assurance in Westphalia-Lippe--recurrence data in inguinal hernia operation. A coomparison of literature and reality].

The data of 90,289 patients of the quality-control program of the Arztekammer Westfalen-Lippe have been analyzed in regard of the patients age at the time of the primary operation and in case of operation because of recurrent inguinal hernia. In both groups of patients distribution of age was identical in principle but transferred to higher age in recurrent hernia by about 3.4 years thus indicating that recurrent hernia mostly occur early after primary operation. Shouldice method showed decreasing acceptance due to increasing numbers of repair operations by laparoscopy and Lichtenstein's method. This tendency was even more pronounced in case of recurrent inguinal hernia. Obviously the surgeons' selection of methods in inguinal hernia repair is not only influenced by evidence based data since Shouldice repair is reported to be superior in each regard.