Abstract
A statistical investigation on external inguinal hernia was performed on 55,054 children, who visited the clinic for "three-year-old health check" in Aomori Prefecture. The oval-all incidence of external inguinal hernia was 1.66 per cent (915/55,054) and a marked familial predisposition was noted. Seventy-four per cent of the cases occured in male. Of the 624 hernias studied, 33 per cent had been noted before the age of three months. Fourty-four per cent of the cases were right-sided, 33 per cent left-sided, and 23 per cent bilateral. At the time of the investigation, 89 per cent of the children with hernia already undergone surgical repair, and most of the repairs were done soon after the recognition. This fact may accounts for a relatively high incidence (12.2%) of contralateral hernia following operation. Spontaneous cure was found in 6.3 per cent and was observed more often in girls, and the cure rate was higher in cases in whom the lapse of time from recognition of the disease to judgement of cure was shorter. The occurrence of irreducible hernial condition was experienced in 46 per cent, and more than a half of those had occured within three months after recognition of the hernia.
