Background: Cancellation of surgical operations in hospitals is a significant problem with many undesirable consequences. Cancelled operations can annoy patients and their families. They are a major drain on health resources, increases theatre costs, results in wasted operating room time and decreases efficiency.In spite of the extensive available literature on preparation of surgical patients and performance of surgical procedures, the focus given to the cancellation of planned surgical operations has been quiet restricted globally. Objectives: To determine the magnitude and point prevalence of surgery cancellation in patients scheduled for elective operation and it`s different reasons.Patients and methods: A prospective cross sectional study carried out in Omdurman teaching hospital for all patients scheduled for elective general surgical operations in one year (2012 August - 2013 August). Results: During the study 2750 patients were scheduled for general surgical operations, 2460 (89.5%) patients were operated on their planned date. A total of 290 (10.6%) operations were cancelled.Mean age was 41.2 ± 16.5 years with female to male ratio 1.2:1. There were many reasons for postponement of surgery; the main reasonswere categorized into medical related, patient related, administrative, inadequate preparations of patients and other reasons accounted for 30%, 25.5%, 21%, 19.7% and 3.8% respectively. The major three causes for cancellation in the study were; failure of the patients to attend uncontrolled high blood pressure and overloaded schedule, these were seen in 57 (19.7%), 35 (12.1%) and 32 (11.0%) respectively.Most of the reasons 76.9% were potentially avoidable. Conclusion: It was obvious that most of the reasons of postponement of elective general surgical operations were avoidable and can be prevented by simple steps.Cancellations can be minimized if the patients with medical problems were detected early and referred for an anaesthetic assessment soon after t