Evaluation and comparison on the results of totally extraperitoneal laparoscopic surgery under general and spinal anesthesia for inguinal hernia

Totally extraperitoneal (TEP) hernia repair surgery is one of the recently considered hernioplasty methods. Here, in the current study, we aimed to compare the results of TEP hernia repair surgery in the two groups of general anesthesia and spinal anesthesia.

This is a randomized clinical trial that was performed in 2018–2019 in Isfahan on 106 patients undergoing TEP inguinal hernia repair. Patients were randomly divided into two groups. The first group underwent TEP inguinal hernia repair surgery under general anesthesia and the second group of patients underwent TEP inguinal hernia repair surgery under spinal anesthesia. Data regarding surgery duration, intensive care unit admission, pain of patients, mean of analgesic injections after the surgery, and complications such as urine retention, seroma, and hematoma, and wound infection were collected. Data were compared between two groups.

We found significantly higher duration of surgery in the spinal anesthesia group (P = 0.02). Patients in the spinal anesthesia group had shorter duration of nutrition regime beginning (P = 0.002) and lower frequencies of urine retention (P = 0.001). Further analysis showed that the mean pain severity was significantly lower in spinal anesthesia group compared to general anesthesia during postoperation measurements(P = 0.001) and patients in spinal anesthesia group received less postoperation analgesics compared to the other group (P = 0.001).

TEP surgery under spinal anesthesia was associated with better clinical results such as lower postoperative pain and analgesics injections compared to general anesthesia.