Identifying critical computed tomography (CT) imaging findings for the preoperative planning of ventral hernia repairs.

Purpose: Computed Tomography (CT) reports vary in qualitative detail and may not capture the information required for the preoperative planning of ventral hernia repairs. The goals of this study were to first survey general and hernia surgeons to establish key hernia imaging characteristics that should be included on CT reports and secondly, to retrospectively review preoperative CTs to determine the percentage that these same imaging characteristics are being reported.

Methods: General and hernia surgeons were surveyed and asked to rank important hernia imaging factors as determined by two academic hernia surgeons on a Likert scoring scale.