McGillicuddy 1998.

Methods	All male participants with inguinal hernias who presented to the Lansing Hernia Center between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1995 were included in the study. All participants were informed of ongoing study and asked by author to participate. Follow‐up was performed at 1, 4 and 52 weeks.
Participants	672 men with inguinal hernias, age 20 to 19 years, seen at the hernia centre
Interventions	Slightly modified Shouldice and Lichtenstein repairs
Outcomes	Recurrence rates, symptoms including patient satisfaction, and infections
Notes	Both types of hernia repair are comparable an effective, but long‐term results favour the Lichtenstein technique for reducing recurrence is, ease of technical mastery, and applications to the outpatient setting by use of a local anaesthetic.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Randomisation sequence was generated using the coin toss method.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not described
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not described
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not described
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Author reports 99.9% at 1 week, 99.9% at 1 month, 97.9% at 1 year, 82.4% at 2 years, 67.3% at 3 years and 64.5% at 4 years.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes were reported and discussed.
Other bias	Low risk	No other significant biases were noted.