ABSTRACT
It has been over 100 years since Bassini ushered in a new era of hernia surgery with the introduction of his triplelayer technique to repair the inguinal floor. Since then, surgeons have developed a myriad of new methods of hernia repair in an attempt to improve the results. However, despite a century of advances in hernia surgery, recurrence continues to plague the general surgeon and is the primary reason why no single technique of herniorrhaphy has become universally accepted. The repair of inguinal hernias has probably produced more variety in technique than any other operation performed by the general surgeon today. Complexity of the anatomy, the variety in size and location of the defect, and the multiplicity of the presentations of a hernia have contributed to this uncertainty regarding the optimal repair.1
