Contribution of Sushruta in Pediatric Surgical Sciences: A Critical Review

The basic principles for treating surgical disorders in children were developed thousands of years ago, even though pediatric surgery is largely acknowledged as a modern medical milestone of the mid-twentieth century. Classical Ayurvedic literature contains extensive conceptual frameworks that address childhood diseases and their operational management. Acharya Sushruta, widely regarded as a pioneer of operative medicine, is at the forefront of this age-old field. He formalised these innovative methods in his seminal work, the Sushruta Samhita. In the Ayurvedic system, Kaumarbhritya (paediatrics) usually deals with holistic child health. Nonetheless, Sushruta's work connects ancient and modern medicine when it comes to structural flaws and surgical procedures. Numerous surgical theories, tissue techniques, and clinical concepts he described are astonishingly compatible with the Objective: The purpose of this research is to assess how Acharya Sushruta's ancient insights are applied to contemporary clinical practice and to critically analyse his contributions to pediatric surgery. We want to comprehend how these early surgical ideas connect modern pediatric care with ancient Indian operative medicine by examining the conceptual, historical, and practical elements of his work. Methods: An explicit systematic search technique based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria was combined with a narrative review. Up until 2026, modern, peer-reviewed biomedical material indexed in PubMed was cross-referenced with classical Sanskrit source texts, mainly the Sushruta Samhita. The physiology of wound healing, pediatric surgical principles, historical versions of reconstructive therapies, and antiquated surgical simulation and education techniques were the main topics of data extraction. Results: Early phenotypic and clinical descriptions of a number of pediatric surgical diseases, such as congenital malformations, structural anorectal anomalies, acute mechanical trauma, musculoskeletal fractures, foreign body impaction, and complex craniofacial defects requiring structural tissue reconstruction, are found in the Sushruta Samhita. Additionally, Sushruta's methodical approach to structural anatomical dissection, careful wound bed preparation, gradual simulation-based training, and pre-operative optimization clearly resembles contemporary pediatric surgical protocols. Conclusion: Sushruta's surgical teachings are among the earliest known scientific foundations for structured pediatric surgical care. When these antiquated frameworks are stripped of historical anachronisms, they nonetheless provide insightful information about modern medical history, surgical education, and translational tissue repair research.