Current practice of incisional hernia reconstruction in Germany

The results of a nationwide survey regarding the treatment of incisional hernias following open laparotomy revealed that the Mayo-duplication is the surgical technique preferred by the majority of surgeons. However, in exceptional situations alloplastic material is implanted by up to 50% of the surgeons asked. More than one forth of the departments performed more than 30 incisional hernia repairs per year. Even for complicated cases the surgeons' own estimation of their recurrence rates was 11.7%. Compared with the data (recurrence rate of the Mayo-duplication of 30%-50%) published in the literature there seems to be a quantitative and qualitative underestimation of the treatment of incisional hernias.