ArticleHernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery2016
Watchful waiting as a treatment strategy for patients with a ventral hernia appears to be safe.
Article in Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The European Hernia Society Prehabilitation Project: a systematic review of patient prehabilitation prior to ventral hernia surgery.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2022Pooled it
- Ventral hernia recurrence in women of childbearing age: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2018Pooled it
- Barbed suture versus preperitoneal ventral patch in medium-size ventral hernia repair: randomized clinical trial.BJS open · 2025Trial
- Management and outcomes in acute symptomatic hernias: a retrospective cohort study and review of cross-over to surgery.Langenbeck's archives of surgery · 2026Article
- A Patient With a Left Ventricular Assist Device Requiring Emergency Surgery for a Strangulated Umbilical Hernia: A Case Report.The American journal of case reports · 2026Article
- "I Just Wish Someone would Take me Very Seriously": Impact of Delayed Ventral Hernia Repair on Patient Well-being.Annals of surgery · 2026Article
- Risk factors of incisional hernia enlargement after colorectal cancer surgery: a retrospective, single-center study.Surgery today · 2026Article
- Safety and feasibility of concomitant ventral hernia repair and total laparoscopic hysterectomy: A single-centre experience of over 1000 cases.Journal of minimal access surgery · 2026Article
- Association between adjuvant chemotherapy and risk of incisional hernia after colorectal cancer resection - a single-centre cohort study.Langenbeck's archives of surgery · 2025Article
- Rectus diastasis is a risk factor for incisional hernia after robot assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2025Article
- Evidence-based, cost-effective management of abdominal wall hernias: An algorithm of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery emergency general surgery algorithms work group.The journal of trauma and acute care surgery · 2025Article
- Mapping the therapeutic landscape in emergency incisional hernia: a scoping review.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2025Article
- Article
- Review
- Surgical Challenges During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Comparative Study of Inguinal Hernia Treatment in Romania.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- Significant increase of emergency hernia operation during COVID.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2024Article
- Gender differences in epigastric hernia repair: a propensity score matching analysis of 15,925 patients from the Herniamed registry.Hernia : the journal of hernias and abdominal wall surgery · 2023Article
- Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hernia surgery in a Swedish healthcare region: a population-based cohort study.BMC surgery · 2022Article
- An Evaluation of the Evidence Guiding Adult Midline Ventral Hernia Repair.Surgery journal (New York, N.Y.) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeDue to risks of postoperative morbidity and recurrence some patients with a ventral hernia are not offered surgical repair. There is limited data on the rate and consequences of a watchful waiting (WW) strategy for these patients. The objective of this cohort study was to analyse outcomes for patients with a ventral hernia who underwent watchful waiting, in terms of later requirement for hernia repair.
methodsAll patients (≥18 years) electively referred to our out-patient clinic from 1 January 2009 to 1 July 2014 with incisional, umbilical or epigastric hernia were included. Information on patient characteristics and whether patients underwent WW or surgery was obtained from hospital files and the Danish National Patient Register. A 100% follow-up was obtained.
resultsThe analyses comprised 569 patients with incisional hernia (WW = 58.1%) and 789 patients with umbilical/epigastric hernia (WW = 43.2%). Kaplan-Meier analyses estimated that the probability for patients who underwent watchful waiting to receive later surgical repair was 19 for incisional hernias and 16% for umbilical/epigastric hernias after 5 years. The probability of requiring emergency repair when in the WW group was 4% for both incisional and umbilical/epigastric hernias after 5 years. There were no significant differences in 30-day readmission, reoperation or mortality rates between the WW patients who later underwent elective hernia repair and patients who were initially offered surgery (p > 0.05), for both incisional and umbilical/epigastric hernias.
conclusionsWatchful waiting appears to be a safe strategy in the treatment of incisional, umbilical and epigastric hernias.
Indexed as
Identifiers
26838293What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.