Abstract

Clinical data on 3119 children that underwent hernia repair operation in the pediatric surgery clinic of the SSK Tepecik Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. Children younger than 1 year of age constituted 13 % of the total. 83 % of the cases were male, 17 % were female; 56.9 % were right-sided, 33.9 were left-sided and 9.2 % were bilateral. In cases where the hernia were unilateral, no further invastigation or exploration was done for the asymptomatic contralateral side. 5.8 % of these patients were found to develop inguinal hernia of the contralateral side. Addittionally, it was observed that female left-sided inguinal hernia patients had a higher risk of developing contralateral inguinal hernia when compared with males. (6.7 vs 20.2) It is also emphasized that more widespread use of outpatient surgery will increase the number of younger healed patients, and decrease the incidence of incarcerated inguinal hernia cases.