Early surgical correction of inguinal hernias in infancy and childhood.

Abstract

Introduction Inguinal hernias are as old as man's attempt to meet his medical problems. However, there seems to be much cloudy thinking concerning them when they occur in infancy and childhood. Too often, inquiring parents are given the advice by their doctors that they should not worry about this situation because it may go away, it will recur if corrected too early, or your child is too young to have anything done about it. Recent work has indicated that the early surgical repair of inguinal hernias is the best method of treatment. 5-7 Despite the evidence in favor of early operation and that against the use of temporizing measures, there are still many general surgeons who prefer not to attempt repair of hernias in infants. This paper reports the results of 453 inguinal herniorrhaphies in young subjects. These were done personally out of a large pediatric service in which more