REPAIR OF INCISIONAL HERNIAS - CURRENT PR ACTICE IN GERMANY

The results of a nationwide survey regarding the treatment of incision al hernias following open laparotomy revealed that the Mayo-duplicatio n is the surgical technique preferred by the majority of surgeons. How ever, in exceptional situations alloplastic material is implanted by u p to 50 % of the surgeons asked. More than one forth of the department s performed more than 30 incisional hernia repairs per year. Even for complicated cases the surgeons' own estimation of their recurrence rat es was 11.7 %. Compared with the data (recurrence rate of the Mayo-dup lication of 30 %-50 %) published in the literature there seems to be a quantitative and qualitative underestimation of the treatment of inci sional hernias.