Abstract
Two patients with paraduodenal hernia in infancy and childhood have been reported. One was a male infant aged 10 days who suffered from vomiting and abdominal distension. The intestine herniated into the mesentericoparietal fossa just to the left side of the superior mesenteric artery, and the sac was situated in the right upper abdomen. Another was a 9-year-old boy with bloody stool and severe abdominal pain. The small intestine herniated into the right side of the abdomen, through the posterior duodenal fossa just to the right side of the inferior mesenteric vein. Differentiation between the right and left paraduodenal hernias is usually made on the relationship between the mesenteric vessels and the orifice of the hernia. In a left hernia, a hernia orifice has the superior mesenteric artery, while a right hernia has the inferior mesenteric vessels on the margin of a hernia orifice. According to this rule, the second case could be a left paraduodenal hernia, although the hernia's contents were in the right abdomen. This contradiction tends to occur especially in a hernia of the posterior duodenal fossa. There fore, differentiation between the right and left paraduodenal hernias has to be decided by the location of the hernia sac. However, confirmation of the superior mesenteric artery and the inferior mesenteric vein running around the hernia orifice are still very important for preventing their injury.
