[The Spigelian hernia: missed? rare? puzzling diagnosis?].

During a period of six years 24 patients with a clinical diagnosis of spigelian hernia were operated in our department (3% of all abdominal wall hernias). The Spigelian hernia could be verified intraoperative in 12 of these patients and in 12 cases there was no evidence of hernia but other findings which could partially cause the pre-operative complaints. It was possible to follow-up on 22 of the patients over a period of 1-6 years postoperative. Those patients with definite Spigelian hernia showed for the most part, good results while the patients with other problems were less satisfactory.