Watchful waiting for communicating hydrocoele in infants

Abstract Background One of the commonest pediatric surgeries is hydrocele. There are suggestions to wait for spontaneous resolution than to operate these cases without harmful adverse events. Herein, we evaluated the outcome of the watchfulness of these cases over 18 months. Methods The study included 93 infants with communicating hydrocele for the Pediatric Surgery Department, Faculty of Medicine (Assiut, Egypt). They were planned to be followed up for 18 months, and indications for intervention included hernia, increasing in size, being tense, and completion of 18 months of follow-up without improvement. Results The gestational age of the included patients was 38.5 ± 2.2 weeks and the age at the time of presentation was 50 (7, 495) days. Most cases were bilateral, reducible, and had an intermittent course. After 18 months of follow-up, 60.2% of the patients resolved spontaneously and 39.8% were surgically treated. Age at the time of presentation was higher among operated patients. Patients with reducibility criteria on clinical examination and lack of intermittent course had higher frequency among operated patients (89.2%). Conclusions It is safe to wait and not to operate on infants with hydrocele up to 18 months as long as there was no hernia. Higher age at presentation and reducibility on examination are indicators that favor the need for surgery.