[Progress in the treatment of inguinal hernia]

Modified Bassini's procedure until recently used to be the optional surgical approach to inguinal hernia at the authors' hospital. A ten-year retrospective study was conducted into 1,687 patients. Contact was actually established with 1,037 of them. Of these 762 returned a questionnaire sent to them, and 345 were available for clinical follow-up checks. These clinical examinations revealed a rate of recurrence of 7.2 per cent, following primary surgery. We have, therefore, changed our approach and have adopted a modified Shouldice procedure.