The acceptance rate of local anaesthesia for elective inguinal hernia repair among the surgeons working in a teaching hospital.

The rates for three different types of anaesthesia used for elective inguinal hernia repairs were retrospectively searched for in the hospital records in 2005 and 2010. In 2005, only 2.1% of elective inguinal hernia repairs were done with local anaesthesia. General anaesthesia was used in 93.7%, whereas regional anaesthesia in 4.2% cases. No day-case outpatient surgery was recorded after any type of anaesthesia. In 2010, local anaesthesia rate increased to 16.2%. Regional anaesthesia rate also reached to 20.6%. Ninety percent of the patients who underwent hernia repair with local anaesthesia were discharged on the day of surgery.