Herniotomy to Treat Inguinal Hernia in Children: Analysis of Clinical Outcome of One Decade Experience

Abstract

Objective: Evaluation of the clinical outcome of inguinal herniotomy in children at a single center. Study Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of surgery, Northern Area Armed Forces Hospital Hafer al Batin, Saudi Arabia, from July 10, 2011, to Oct. 10, 2021. Materials and Methods: A total of 256 patients admitted with inguinal hernia underwent inguinal herniotomy. All the patients were treated by single senior pediatric surgeon. The age ranged from 2 months to 13 years. The data was collected regarding age at operation, gender, location, investigations performed, operative procedure, and complications of the surgical intervention. The follow up was also done in the outpatient clinic for 12 months to assess the complications and outcome of the procedure. The data was analyzed by IBM SPSS version 26.0. The Fischer exact test was applied to evaluate the association of site of inguinal hernia with gender. The p value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: One hundred and seventeen (46%) patients had right sided inguinal hernia, 124 (48%) had left sided and 15 (6%) were having bilateral inguinal hernia. There was no per-operative and post-operative complication. There was no testicular atrophy. There was no recurrence of inguinal hernia during follow up of 12 months after surgery. All the children had successful clinical outcome on follow up of 12 months period. Fischer exact test was applied to find the association of type of inguinal hernia with gender and the p value was 0.166 which is considered statistically nonsignificant. Conclusion: Early inguinal herniotomy on next available elective list is safe, effective and feasible procedure to treat children with inguinal hernia.

Keywords

• inguinal hernia
• inguinal herniotomy
• recurrence
• testicular atrophy.