A prospective research was performed from April, 1993 through July, 1995 to study the histopathology of the hernial sac indirect inguinal hernias in adults and children, in order to verify the existence of smooth muscle, its incidence and morphological presentation, as well as to make a comparison to random biopsies of the parietal peritoneum. A number of 123 patients were assigned to group 1, where the hernial sacs were studied and 63 to group 2 where biopsies of the peritoneum of the abdominal cavity were performed. It was observed that a smooth muscle fibers occurred on 65,4% of patients from group 1 (ten of them with bilateral hernias) and on 19,04% of patients from group 2. The association among the occurrence of fibers of smooth muscle, the categorical variances (such as gender, skin complexion and side of hernia), and the continuous variances (patient's age, lenth and width of the hernial sac) wer analyzed. Our results showed that the female gender presents a major incidence of smooth muscle fibers fibers (p=0,004) and also is 5,46 more likely to have smooth muscle fibers on the hernial sac. Therefore, the conclusion is that the smooth muscle fibers predominate in the parietal peritoneum of the lower abdomen and that there is greater quantity of smooth muscle fibers in the peritoneum of the inguinal hernial sac when compared to the parietal peritoneum.
Hernial sac; Hernial sac; Hernial sac; Inguinal herniorraphy
