Mysterious inguinal swellings disguised as hernia: Series of four cases

Abstract

A hernia surgeon may encounter unexpected intraoperative findings. It is important to be prepared to detect them and apply the appropriate treatment. We retrospectively studied twenty patients with inguinal swellings who were admitted to our surgical department over a 2-year period including patients without a definitive diagnosis of inguinal hernia upon admission. Our aim was to present our experience with the unexpected findings during inguinal hernia surgery, either unusual hernial contents or pathologic entities, such as neoplastic masses, masquerading as a hernia.

Keywords

• Amyand′s hernia
• Litter′s hernia
• Meckel′s diverticulum
• mysterious inguinal swelling
• seminoma
• uterus in hernial sac