Inguinal hernia is the most common disease treated by the pediatric surgeon. There are several controversial aspects of management 1)the optimal timing of surgical repair, especially for preterm babies, 2)contralateral groin exploration during repair of a clinically unilateral hernia, 3)use of laparoscope in contralateral groin exploration, 4)timing of surgical repair of cord hydrocele, 5)perioperative pain control, 6)perioperative management of anemia. In this survey, we attempted to determine the approach of members of KAPS to these aspects of hernia treatment. A questionnaire by e-mail or FAX was sent to all members. The content of the questionnaire were adapted from the “American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Surgery hernia survey revisited (J Pediatr Surg 40, 1009-1014, 2005)”. For full-term male baby, most surgeons (85.7 %) perform an elective operation as soon as diagnosis was made. For reducible hernia found in ex-preterm infants already discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), 76.2 % of surgeons performed an elective repair under general anesthesia (85.8 %). 42.9 % of the surgeons performed the repair just before discharge. For same-day surgery for the ex-premature baby, the opinion was evenly divided. For an inguinal hernia with a contralateral undescended testis in a preterm baby, 61.9 % of surgeons choose to ‘wait and see’ until 12 month of age. The most important consideration in deciding the timing of surgery of inguinal hernia in preterm baby was the existence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (82.4 %), episode of apnea/bradycardia on home monitoring (70.6 %). Most surgeons do not explore the contralateral groin during unilateral hernia repair. Laparoscope has not been tried. Most surgeons do not give perioperative analgesics or blood transfusion.

A 17 month-old girl presented in the pediatric clinic on November 27th, 1990 with a neck mass. The mass was 2 cm in diameter, firm in consistency and movable on the upper pole of the thyroid cartilage in the midline. The technetium thyroid scan showed a hot reactivity at the compatible site of the mass, but no other radioactivity in either site of the normal thyroid positions. At her second visit on January 23th, 1996, the mass had enlarged up to 3.5cm in diameter in the same location of the neck. The follow up thyroid scan revealed a walnut sized, snowman-like radioactivity. One of the snowman-like double images seemed to be a lingual ectopic thyroid and the other a midline ectopic thyroid remnant in the infrahyoid level. This interpretation was supported by the computed tomography of the neck, which showed a ligual mass in the foramen cecum area and an another mass in the anterior comis-sure of the larynx in the mildline. Thyroid function test was normal except a slightly increased TSH. As a result of this changing pattern of thyroid radioactive images, a case of a lingual thyroid as well as another midline ectopic thyroid tissue at the infra hyoid level is reported.

Annular pancreas is a rare congenital anomaly with the descending duodenum encircled by a ring of pancreatic tissue, which may cause partial or complete obstruction of the duodenum. In newborn, the symptoms can be those of duodenal stasis resulting from partial intestinal obstruction secondary to some degree of duodenal stenosis. A male newborn weighing 2.0 Kg was born by C-section delivery at 37 weeks' gestation to a 27-year-old mother who had a hydramnios. He was in relatively good condition at birth except regurgitation of saliva and intermittent apnea. A plain film of the abdomen showed the double-bubble of gas filled stomach and proximal duodenum, and upper gastrointestinal series showed a dilated proximal duodenum, with a complete obstruction of the descending duodenum. Intraoperative finding revealed encirclement of the duodenal second portion by pancreatic tissue. Duodenojejunostomy was performed. After the operation, he had developed two serious complications, neonatal septicemia by Enterobacter cloacae on postoperative day 12 and systemic candidiasis on postoperative day 19, and been managed with ventilatory support, antibiotics, and antifungal agents with recovery.