Introduction: Inguinal hernia in children can threaten life or cause loss of organs. It requires an elective surgical approach, through open surgery or laparoscopic. Objective: To compare the results of laparoscopic surgery versus open technique in indirect inguinal hernia in pediatric patients operated on in the General Hospital High Specialty Naval. Material and methods: longitudinal, prospective, comparative and quasi-experimental study, typical clinical practice trial type, pediatric cases with hernia were analyzed indirect inguinal operated at the High Specialty Naval General Hospital during the period 2015-2017. Results: 66 patients were included, between 1 month and 16 years of age. 51.5% is underwent minimally invasive surgery and 48.5% open surgery, they were not found differences in trans-surgical complications (p 0.73) or postsurgical complications (p 0.10), nor in surgical time, while the time of stay and recovery were significantly lower in the laparoscopic surgery group. Conclusions: Both surgical techniques are safe, but laparoscopic surgery.It offers the advantage of identifying other alterations and performing the repair in the same surgical event, reduces the time of stay and the recovery time.
