[Inguinal hernia repair with the Shouldice technique].

The authors analyze the result of Shouldice inguinal hernia repair in 1000 patients. In a total of 1034 hernias, 966 of them were unilateral and 68 bilateral. The hernias were indirect (61.7%), direct (24.9%) and combined (3.5%). There were 102 recurrent hernias (9.9%) and the mean age of the patients was 50 years. In most cases the patients were male (96.9%) and peasants (47.6%). The post-operative follow-up was annual in 65.8% of the patients, for a period up to 10 years. The recurrence rate was 0.8% in the cases of primary hernias and 4.9% in the case of recurrent ones.