Early vs Late Inguinal Hernia Repair in Preterm Infants—Reply

In Reply We thank Dr Montalva and colleagues for their comments regarding apnea occurrence and anesthetic approach for inguinal hernia repair in response to our multicenter randomized clinical trial examining the timing of hernia repair in preterm infants. We enrolled smaller and more immature infants than most available studies, including the General Anesthesia compared to Spinal anesthesia (GAS) study. The surgical and anesthetic methods were used at the discretion of the clinicians and the finding that 99% of the cases received general anesthesia is consistent with current practice for the trial population at the 39 participating sites.