The British journal of surgery
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A retrospective review is presented of 496 children with a median age of 4 years (range 0-13 years) on whom a total of 527 hernia repairs were performed as out-patients. No wound infections were observed, and the rate of early surgical complications was 1.5 per cent. ⋯ Owing to the negligible infection rate and the low surgical complication and recurrence rates it is concluded that children with inguinal hernia would benefit from operation as out-patients, and that they should be operated on immediately after diagnosis, irrespective of age. Besides probably minimizing the children's psychological trauma, out-patient surgery provided considerable savings to the health service in the present study.