Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the advantages and disadvantages of laparoscopic hernioplasty by comparing them with conventional surgeries. Materials and methods: The study included 376 patients (344 men and 32 women) who underwent inguinal hernia repair in inpatient settings over a 3-year period (2017–2020). The patients were divided into two groups: patients with conventional hernioplasty (CH) - 312 patients (291 men and 32 women, mean age 55±15 years, range 18–93) and 64 patients with laparoscopic hernioplasty (LH), all of them middle-aged men at mean age 45±15 years (range 24–69). Results: Thirty-eight patients (59.38%) with LH were ASA class 1 patients while the CH patients were stratified in ASA classes 1 to 4. The LH group consisted of 39 patients who had transabdominal preperitoneal (TAPP) surgery and 25 who received total extraperitoneal (TEP) repair. The average operating time was 12 minutes (range 90–200 min) for TAPP and 50 minutes (range 20-125 min) for TEP. The mean intensity of pain score measured by VAS (0-10) was 4 (2-5) for CH patients and 3 (2-4) for LH patients. The duration of pain was 3 days (2-4) for CH patients and 2 days (1-3) for the LH group. Ninety-five percent (61/64) of LH patients defined their quality of life as “better”. Conclusions: The following factors are of particular importance for the choice of hernioplastic technique: operating time, possible intraoperative complications, the level of postoperative pain and potential postoperative analgesics, possible complications, patient recovery, length of hospital stay, cost, quality of life, and long-term results of the treatment.

Introduction: The new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, provokes infection with different clinical presentation. It involves an asymptomatic condition, mild variants with fever and dry cough to severe pneumonia, adynamia and respiratory failure with lethal outcome. The fibrotic lung tissue after the inflammatory process is a background for development of a secondary pneumothorax. Although it rarely causes lethal outcomes in COVID-19 patients, pneumothorax requires early diagnosis and adequate treatment to prevent any complications and decrease mortality rate. Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse the results of surgical treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with pneumothorax in terms of demographic data, concomitant diseases, complications, and outcome. Materials and methods: Longitudinal prospective study was carried out with 26 patients with pneumothorax as a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection. They were treated at the Intensive Care Unit of the Infectious Disease Clinic and at the Second Clinic of Surgery, St George University Hospital in Plovdiv over a 6-month period from September 2020 to February 2021. Results: Seventeen of the patients were men and nine – women. Twenty-four of all patients underwent thoracentesis and two of them had a video-assisted thoracoscopy. The mean age of the studied patients with pneumothorax and COVID-19 was 66.77±12.61 years, which shows that it is the patients of advanced age with concomitant diseases that are at a higher risk of serious complications and adverse outcome. Of the hospitalized 1245 patients with COVID-19, 385 (30.92%) passed away. Of all hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2, 26 (2.08%) developed pneumothorax. Sixteen of them (62%) passed away. The possibility of a lethal outcome for intubated patients increased more than twice. Conclusions: The pneumothorax as a complication of COVID-19 carries high mortality and severely worsens the prognosis for these patients.