_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2016 Mar 15; 4(1):89-93. 89 ID Design 2012/DOOEL Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences. 2016 Mar 15; 4(1):89-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2016.023 eISSN: 1857-9655 Clinical Science Evaluation of Anesthesia Profile in Pediatric Patients after Inguinal Hernia Repair with Caudal Block or Local Wound Infiltration Aleksandra Gavrilovska-Brzanov 1 *, Biljana Kuzmanovska 1 , Andrijan Kartalov 1 , Ljupco Donev 1 , Albert Lleshi 1 , Marija Jovanovski-Srceva 1 , Tatjana Spirovska 1 , Nikola Brzanov 2 , Risto Simeonov 3 1 University Clinic of Surgery, KARIL, Faculty of Medicine, Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; 2 University Clinic of Surgery, ER Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; 3 University Clinic for Pediatric Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Citation: Gavrilovska-Brzanov A, Kuzmanovska B, Kartalov A, Donev L, Lleshi A, Jovanovski-Srceva M, Spirovska T, Brzanov N, Simeonov R. Evaluation of Anesthesia Profile in Pediatric Patients after Inguinal Hernia Repair with Caudal Block or Local Wound Infiltration. Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2016 Mar 15; 4(1):89-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2016.023 Keywords: Caudal block; Local wound infiltration; Pediatric analgesia; Hernia Inguinalis; Buivacaine. * Correspondence: Dr. Aleksandra Gavrilovska-Brzanov. University Clinic of Surgery, KARIL, Faculty of Medicine, Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. E-mail: gavrilovska.aleksandra@gmail.com Received: 14-Jan-2016; Revised: 23-Jan-2016; Accepted: 24-Jan-2016; Online first: 03-Feb-2016 Copyright: © 2016 Aleksandra Gavrilovska-Brzanov, Biljana Kuzmanovska, Andrijan Kartalov, Ljupco Donev, Albert Lleshi, Marija Jovanovski-Srceva, Tatjana Spirovska, Nikola Brzanov, Risto Simeonov. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Abstract AIM: The aim of this study is to evaluate anesthesia and recovery profile in pediatric patients after inguinal hernia repair with caudal block or local wound infiltration. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this prospective interventional clinical study, the anesthesia and recovery profile was assessed in sixty pediatric patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair. Enrolled children were randomly assigned to either Group Caudal or Group Local infiltration. For caudal blocks, Caudal Group received 1 ml/kg of 0.25% bupivacaine; Local Infiltration Group received 0.2 ml/kg 0.25% bupivacaine. Investigator who was blinded to group allocation provided postoperative care and assessments. Postoperative pain was assessed. Motor functions and sedation were assessed as well. RESULTS: The two groups did not differ in terms of patient characteristic data and surgical profiles and there weren’t any hemodynamic changes between groups. Regarding the difference between groups for analgesic requirement there were two major points - on one hand it was statistically significant p < 0.05 whereas on the other hand time to first analgesic administration was not statistically significant p = 0.40. There were significant differences in the incidence of adverse effects in caudal and local group including: vomiting, delirium and urinary retention. CONCLUSIONS: Between children undergoing inguinal hernia repair, local wound infiltration insures safety and satisfactory analgesia for surgery. Compared to caudal block it is not overwhelming. Caudal block provides longer analgesia, however complications are rather common. Introduction Prophylactic analgesia with local anesthetics is an attractive concept, especially in pediatric practice, because the evaluation of pain can be very challenging in young children [1]. In contrast to opioids, local anesthetics can be administered safely, and in recent guidelines regional anesthesia is accepted as the cornerstone of post-operative pain relief in the pediatric patients [2]. Although regional anesthesia holds a good safety record overall [3], the global experience with pediatric regional anesthesia is still quite low; even the most commonly performed procedure, caudal block, represents only 2.5% of all central neuraxial blocks performed [4]. Determining the risk-benefit ratio is rather difficult for techniques that are relatively rarely performed. Wound infiltration can produce reliable analgesia for superficial skin surgery. Infiltration itself is extensively used by pediatricians, surgeons and emergency physicians for skin laceration repair or minor superficial surgery [1]. Several studies have compared the local anesthesia