Early versus late inguinal hernia repair in extremely low-birthweight infants

Objective: Compare outcomes of extremely low-birthweight (ELBW) infants following early (before discharge) versus late (after discharge) inguinal hernia (IH) repair. Study design: In a retrospective study of ELBW infants with IH, data were abstracted for clinical characteristics, IH and related outcomes. Result: Of the 39/252 (15.4%) ELBW infants who developed IH, those with early (59%) versus late (41%) repair were comparable in birth weight (753 ± 158 versus 744 ± 131 g, p = 0.84), gestation age (26 ± 2 versus 26.2 ± 2 weeks, p = 0.92), with comparable rate of broncopulmonary dysplasia (87% versus 75%, p = 0.41), but early repair group had prolonged respiratory support (60.6 ± 28.6 versus 39 ± 30 days, p = 0.032). Both groups had comparable diagnosis to repair interval (51.2 ± 29.2 versus 60.5 ± 30.6 days, p = 0.38) and early repair group has earlier corrected gestation (41.6 ± 3.9 versus 45.4 ± 4.6 weeks, p < 0.01) at time of repair. Post-IH repair complications (incarceration, postoperative apnea, infections, recurrence and testicular atrophy) were not different. Conclusions: We did not find significant differences in outcomes of IH in early and late repair groups of ELBW infants.