ABSTRACT

Background: Advantages of local anesthesia for inguinal hernia repair are well established. Even though, the spinal anesthetic technique is still the routine in our hospitals. The objective of this study is to compare the use of local and spinal anesthetic techniques for inguinal herniorraphies. We evaluated the repercussion of these anesthetic techniques in pain, use of analgesic medications, hospital discharges and satisfaction with the procedure.

Methods: One hundred and five patients who underwent elective inguinal herniorraphy between January and October, 2002, were prospectively analyzed. Fourteen patients were excluded. The amount of patients was divided in two groups: spinal anesthesia (69 patients) and local anesthesia with sedation (22 patients).

Results: Local anesthesia group presented greater pain incidence during the transoperative period (p<0.05). Despite this, while in hospital, these patients referred minor incidence and intensity of pain (p<0.05), with comparable consuming of analgesics (p>0.05). Besides, the local anesthesia group had a minor anesthesia recovery time (p<0.05) and an expense of 62,45% minor in each procedure. Pain related in the local anesthesia group during the surgery did not influence the grade of satisfaction with the procedure (p>0.05).

Conclusions: Local anesthesia with sedation is an adequate anesthetic technique to be used in primary inguinal herniorraphies. It showed advantages over spinal anesthesia: lower incidence and intensity of pain during hospital staying, shorter anesthesia recovery time and minor hospitals expenses.

Key words: Inguinal Hernia; Pain; Analgesia; Local Anesthesia; Spinal Anesthesia.