Abstract
Pediatric day care surgical programs have been actively utilized in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century. Recently, day surgery of pediatric inguinal herniorrhaphy is carried out in Japan. Advantages of this day surgery program are cost saving, improved utilization of staff and hospital facilities, and reduction of stress for the pediatric patient and his family. But postoperative pyrexia (≧37.5℃) makes it difficult to discharge on the day of operation. In order to practice day surgery of pediatric inguinal herniorrhaphy safely, records of 187 children were reviewed. 96 patients were febrile and 91 patients were afebrile postoperatively. Statification according to body weight, duration of NPO, duration of operation, duration of anesthesia, intraoperative infusion volume and postoperative infusion volume revealed that mean body weight of febrile groups (8.77±2.90kg) was significantly smaller than that of afebrile groups (14.88±5.29kg, p<0.005). Then, it is concluded that patient under about 10kg weight is apt to be febrile postoperatively and that body weight limitation is more suitable than age limitation for the selection of children when day surgery of pediatric inguinal herniorrhaphy is carried out.
