Background:

Recurrent inguinal hernia is currently considered a complex hernia of the abdominal wall after it has been managed with a primary procedure, which represents a more technically challenging hernia.

Objective:

To determine the difference in epidemiological, clinical and surgical characteristics of patients with recurrent inguinal hernia and patients without recurrence.

Method:

Analytical cross-sectional study, in people over 18 years of age after surgery for inguinal hernia at the Naval Medical Center during the period from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2019, integrating two study groups.

Results:

106 patients were included, 29 surgeries for recurrence, predominance of men and older than 60 years. Differences was found between the group of surgery for recurrence and the group of primary surgery in surgical time in minutes, with medians of 115 (p25 75 and p75 154) and 72 (p25 58 and p75 110), respectively (p = 0.001); type of open approach, 62.1% and 88.3% (p = 0.005), and type of regional anesthesia, 48.3% and 75.3% (p = 0.008). Correlation between body mass index and size of the hernial defect was explored, obtaining r of −0.099 and p = 0.652, with a null correlation between them.

Conclusions:

With the findings obtained in this study, it is possible to hypothesize the behavior of the naval population which may differ from the general population and thus establish follow-up protocols to give magnitude to already known factors.