Wound cosmesis problems and other postoperative problems of laparoscopic compared to open paediatric inguinal hernia repair: A meta‐analysis

A meta‐analysis research was executed to appraise the wound cosmesis problems and other postoperative problems of laparoscopic compared to open paediatric inguinal hernia (IH) repair. Inclusive literature research until March 2023 was done and 869 interconnected researches were revised. The 11 picked researches enclosed 3718 paediatric inguinal hernia were in the utilised researches' starting point, 1948 of them were utilising laparoscopic IH repairs, and 1770 were utilising open IH repairs. Odds ratios (ORs) in addition to 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were utilised to appraise the wound cosmesis problems and other postoperative problems of laparoscopic compared to open paediatric IH repairs by dichotomous approaches and a fixed or random model. Laparoscopic IH repairs had significantly lower wound cosmesis problems (OR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.16–0.52, P < .001), metachronous contralateral inguinal hernia (MCIH) (OR, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.03–0.49, P = .003), recurrence (OR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.34–0.99, P = .04) and postoperative problems (OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.17–0.73, P = .005), and higher wound score (OR, 12.80; 95% CI, 10.09–15.51, P < .001) compared to open paediatric IH. Laparoscopic IH repairs had significantly lower wound cosmesis problems, MCIH, recurrence, and postoperative problems, and a higher wound score compared to open paediatric IH. However, when interacting with its values, caution must be taken since much of the research had low sample sizes.