Introduction:

Inguinal hernia is one of the most frequent illness and with a great number of technical modifications that were operated by the general surgeon. The complications percentage internationally accepted oscillated between 5 and 10%.

Objective:

To identify the complications in the elective surgery of inguinal hernias.

Methods:

an observational and descriptive study of a series of 246 patients was performed on the complications of elective inguinal hernia surgery in the General Surgery Service of the Provincial Teaching Hospital "Saturnino Lora" of Santiago de Cuba during the years 2016 -2017.

Results:

There were 18 complications (7.3%) of the sample. Type 2 according to Nyhus classification prevailed with 73 (29.7%) patients of the sample, and eight (44.4%) of complicated patients; the operations carried out were open, among which the fascial overlayer tissue prevailed (Goderich) with 111 (45.1%) and the prosthetic (Lichtenstein) with 85 (34.5%). Complications occurred in 7 (38.8%) and 3 (16.6%) patients, respectively. The most used anaesthetic method was local with sedation in 171 (69.5%) and in 13 of them (72.3%) there were complications. The predominant surgical time was 30 minutes to one hour in 156 patients (63.4%), where 10 complications were recorded (55.5%). Of the total operations, 96.7% were ambulatory (238 patients). There were operated on 85.7% of the cases by residents, a group that contributed 94.5% of the complications diagnosed.

Conclusions:

The characteristics of patients suffering from acute and chronic complications of elective inguinal hernia surgery, related to Type 2 according to Nyhus classification, the open operations carried out, the anaesthetic method employed, surgical time, ambulatory surgery and surgeon level, do not differ from that reported by the national and foreign literature.

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