Inguinal hernia on the internet: a critical comparison of Germany and the UK.

Despite containing an increasing amount of medical information, the Internet provides only rare benefits for surgical patients. Using "inguinal hernia" as a catchword, an amateur search was imitated on the British Internet market. Sixty-five pages, standardised regarding quality and efficiency, were evaluated. A comparison to the German Internet market was added. In summary, the broad majority of the pages revealed poor results. Technical appearance, quality of content, and target grouping show big deficiencies. The applicable laws on the European market are not yet established. The ranking lists of the search engines do not reflect the quality of the pages. Patients need competent guides to process surgical information from the Internet. The establishment of specialised institutions to control surgical Web sites according to quality, content, and legality on the European level is urgent.