PART I: Abdominal wall. - 1 Epidemiology.- 2 Anatomy.- 3 Clusters of patology & interventions.- 4 Unit of wall surgery.- 5 Organization and certification of abdominal wall surgery: the German example, the easter Europe example, the Sweden example, the Spain example.- 6 Organization and certification of abdominal wall surgery: the Eastern Europe example.- 7 Organization and certification of abdominal wall surgery: the Swedish example.- 8 Organization and certification of abdominal wall surgery: the Spanish example.- 9 Devices and biomaterials: from chemistry to certification.- 10 Assistential settings.- 11 Preventing incisional hernias: closure of abdominal wall, follow-up in abdominal surgery.- PART II: Economics .- 12 Economic Evaluation and Health Technology Assessment of Healthcare Programmes.- 13 Comparative Effectiveness in Health Technology Assessment for Medical Devices.- 14 Economic evaluation of abdominal Wall Surgery (cost benefit analysis, cost effectiveness, cost-quality analysis).- 15 Cost Containement: abdominal surgery unit.- 16 The Shouldice experience.- 17 Presurgical hidden costs: imaging, assessment clinic.- 18 Postsurgical hidden costs: neuralgia.- 19 Postsurgical hidden costs: infection.- 20 Reimbursement strategies for medical devices: the case of Abdominal Wall Surgery in Italy.- 21 Economic modelling and Budget Impact Analysis in Abdominal Surgery: the case of mesh.- PART III: Outcome.- 22 How to measure outcome in surgery.- 23 Present and future of EBM.- 24 Registries: monitoring clinical ourcomes.- 25 Registries as a source of information for the purchase of devices.- PART IV: Future perspectives.- 26 Stakeholders opinions.- 27 Evolution of abdominal wall surgery in non developed countries.- 28 How social patterns affect the development of science.- 29 Ferrying to the future.