[Ambulatory pediatric surgery--limits and risks from the clinical viewpoint].

Day-care surgery in childhood has to meet the same safety criteria as inpatient care; thus, a knowledge of the risks and limits is mandatory. The kind of operation, its duration, concomitant diseases, the patient's age, previous vaccinations, and social conditions limit the feasibility of day-care surgery. Premature infants under the age of 1 year should not be treated on an outpatient basis because of the higher incidence of early postoperative complications. Above all, anesthesiological problems play an important role in day-care patients; fortunately, most of them are minor complications. During a 14-year period 2179 children were treated in our department on an outpatient basis, resulting in a total complication rate of 1.7% and unexpected inpatient care of 1.1% of the patients in our series. Daycare surgery can be regarded as standard treatment for most of the surgical routine procedures in children.