The inguinal darn.

We performed 115 nylon darn repairs in 100 patients with inguinal hernia; 61 were primary and 54 secondary repairs, with 50 patients in each group. The Kinmonth modification of the Moloney darn was used. Thirty-seven percent of secondary repairs were done in patients with two or more previous repairs. Thirteen patients had indirect hernia repairs. The follow-up on 105 repairs in 90 patients averaged 62 months. There were two (3.5%) primary and four (8.3%) secondary repair recurrences. The six failures (5.7%) overall were either technical errors or improper patient selection. Three superficial wound infections (2.6%) healed without complications or suture sinuses. The inguinal darn for recurrent inguinal hernias appears to have a lower recurrence rate than the reported 15% to 30% following other techniques.