Anesthesia for Inguinal Hernia Repair: Experience with a Tertiary Hospital-Based Surgical Outreach in a Developing World

BACKGROUND: The dearth of adequate facilities and anesthetists limits the number and extent of surgical cases that can be attended to in surgical outreach programs. Inguinal hernia remains a common health burden in the developing world. Tertiary hospitals provide good anesthetic complements to safe surgeries and will be a veritable tool in surgical outreaches. OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study is to assess the types/techniques of anesthesia used in uncomplicated open inguinal hernia repair in a tertiary hospital-based surgical outreach program. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was a prospective analysis of anesthetic techniques used in all uncomplicated inguinal hernia repairs performed in outreach program over 1 week in May 2018. Data were collected with a pro forma, analyzed with SPSS, and presented in tables and figures. RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-five patients with uncomplicated inguinal hernias were recruited for the study. The patients’ age ranged from 0 to 89 years, with a mean age of 33.62 ± 22.75 years. Most cases occurred in children. The male-to-female ratio was 7:1, and the majority were primary hernia repairs. Eighty-seven (44.6%) patients had local anesthesia (LA), 65 (33.3%) had general anesthesia (GA), while 43 (22.1%) had spinal anesthesia (SA). One hundred and sixty-two (83.1%) patients needed intraoperative analgesic augmentation. One hundred and sixty-nine (86.7%) patients were operated as day-case surgeries, while 26 (13.3%) patients were discharged the day after surgery. The failure rate of LA and SA put together was 74.6%, but there was no conversion to GA. Anesthetic complication was observed in 3.4% of cases. CONCLUSION: Organizing inguinal hernia repair outreach in a tertiary hospital offers the benefit of a full complement of anesthesia, which ensures safe and smooth surgery with low anesthetic complications. Most cases were done as daycare surgeries despite the high failure rate of LA and SA.