Open inguinal hernioplasty under local, spinal and general anaesthesia: a comparative study

Inguinal hernia repair is one of the most common operations performed in General Surgery accounting for about 10–15% of all surgeries. Inguinal hernia repair can be done under local, spinal or general anaesthesia. Although specialized hernia centres routinely use local anaesthesia for uncomplicated open inguinal hernia repair, very few surgeons adopt this technique, and prefer performing surgery under spinal or general anaesthesia. We compared the short-term outcomes following open inguinal hernia mesh repair under local, spinal and general anaesthesia in our hospital.

(1) To compare the post-operative pain scores among the three groups. (2) To compare the duration of surgery in minutes, the duration of analgesia, analgesic requirement, the time of return to normal activity such as walking, the time of initiation of diet, and the time of voiding after the surgery. Also to compare any complications, such as urinary retention, need for catheterization, nausea and/or emesis, and the length of hospital stay. (3) To observe the impact on health-related quality of life according to EuroQol and patient satisfaction and acceptance of the type of anaesthesia for the procedure.

A single centre non-randomised, prospective, observational study was performed in 135 patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair under local (LA), spinal (SA) or general anaesthesia (GA), with 45 patients in each arm, over the span of one year. After approval from the Ethical Committee, and proper informed consent, patients above 18 years of age who were to undergo uncomplicated open inguinal hernioplasty were recruited for the study. Lichtensteins tension-free hernioplasty was performed in all cases. The duration of the procedure was calculated from the time of induction or infiltration of local or spinal anaesthesia, till the end of dressing, or extubation in case of general anaesthesia. The duration of analgesia was calculated from the end of the procedure to the feeling of first pain as recorded in the questionnaire. A standard postoperative protocol was employed to determine the pain scores for the first 7 days and also to compare the short-term outcomes i.e., duration of analgesia, return to normal activity, complications, post-operative nausea and emesis, analgesic requirement, urinary retention, length of hospital stay, health-related quality of life and patient satisfaction and acceptance were recorded according to standard proforma and EuroQol questionnaire. All the statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS version 16.0.

The mean pain scores were lower in the LA group as compared to SA and GA groups from POD-1 to POD-6 (p < 0.001). However, the values from the 7th post-operative days were similar in all three groups and statistically insignificant (p = 0.09). The outcomes such as duration of analgesia, return to activity such as walking, time of first meal and time of discharge from the hospital were all better in the LA group (p < 0.001). The results concerning nausea, vomiting, analgesic use and urinary retention all favour LA. No difference was found among the three groups concerning overall satisfaction and quality of life.

In a general surgical setting, we found that local anaesthesia is well tolerated and associated with significantly lower pain scores in the immediate post-operative period and also requires less analgesic use when compared with general and spinal anaesthesia. Patients in the LA group can resume basic activities such as walking, voiding, and initiating diet almost immediately after the procedure and there were no incidences of retention of urine, which was a significant advantage over the other two types of anaesthesia. Patients who were graded as ASA 4 and 5, who were unfit for general anaesthesia, were able to undergo the surgery under local anaesthesia with no postoperative complications. Moreover, the complications and risks of spinal and general anaesthesia are avoided without compromising the quality of surgery and its outcomes. The duration of the surgery as well as hospital stay is significantly less in patients undergoing surgery under local anaesthesia and most cases can be done as a daycare procedure, which is significantly advantageous, especially in low-income settings, with no difference in the health-related quality of life or patient satisfaction and acceptance.