Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of inguinal hernia treated by tension-free hernioplasty in adult. Methods Electronic databases were searched including CNKI (1993 to 2003), MEDLINE (1993 to 2003) and OVID (1993 to 2003). Personal contact with experts in the field of tension-free hernioplasty was performed to identify potentially relevant trials. Randomized controlled trials of plug amp; Mesh versus Mesh only repair and laparoscopic versus open Mesh hernia repair in recurrence, peri-operative complication or long term postoperative complication were included. Data related to the clinical outcome were extracted by two reviewers independently. Statistical analysis was performed by using RevMan 4.2 software. Results Twenty one studies involving 4 154 patients met the inclusion criteria from 1993 to 2003. Compared with Mesh only repair, plug amp; Mesh repair had no significant difference in recurrence rate (OR 1.14, 95%CI 0.37 to 3.47, P=0.82), preoperative complication rate (OR 1.01, 95%CI 0.63 to 1.63, P=0.95) and long term postoperative complication rate (OR 0.46, 95%CI 0.18 to 1.16, P=0.1). Compared with open Mesh hernioplasty, transabdominal preperitoreal repair (TAPP) group had no significant difference in recurrence rate (OR1.24, 95%CI 0.65 to 2.36, P=0.52), preoperative complication rate (OR 0.89, 95%CI 0.65 to 1.22, P=0.46) and persistent pain (OR 0.76, 95%CI 0.48 to 1.19, P=0.22); totally extrapevitoreal repair (TEP) group had no significant difference in recurrence rate (OR1.07, 95%CI 0.51 to 2.24, P=0.70) or persistent pain (OR 0.95, 95%CI 0.55 to 1.65, P=0.86), and had lower tendency persistent pain (OR 0.50, 95%CI 0.34 to 0.73, P=0.000 4) with statistical significance. Conclusion Current evidence suggests that there is no significant difference between anterior approach plug amp; Mesh repair (Rutkow’s repair) and the Mesh only repair (Lichtenstein’s repair). TEP of Laparoscopic hernioplasty is superior to open Mesh hernia repair in preoperative complication. More researches are needed for recurrence rate, persistent pain.