Surgery In Global Health Research Articles

Prevalence of Paediatric Surgical Conditions in Eastern Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Study

BackgroundThe role of surgery in global health has gained greater attention in recent years. Approximately 1.8 billion children below 15 years live in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Many surgical conditions affect children. Therefore, paediatric surgery requires specific emphasis. Left unattended, the consequences can be dire. Despite this, there is a paucity of data regarding prevalence of surgical conditions in children in LMIC. The present objective was to investigate the prevalence of paediatric surgical conditions in children in a defined geographical area in Eastern Uganda.MethodA cross-sectional study was carried out in the Iganga-Mayuge Health and Demographic Surveillance Site located in Eastern Uganda. Through a two-stage, cluster-based sampling process, 490 households from 49 villages were randomly selected, generating a study population of 1581 children. The children’s caregivers were interviewed, and the children were physically examined by two medical doctors to identify any surgical conditions.ResultsThe interview was performed with 1581 children, and 1054 were physically examined. Among these, the overall prevalence of any surgical condition was 16.0 per cent (n = 169). Of these, 39 per cent had an unmet surgical need (66 of 169). This is equivalent to a 6.3 per cent prevalence of current unmet surgical need. The most common groups of surgical condition were congenital anomalies and trauma-related conditions.ConclusionSurgical conditions in children are common in eastern Uganda. The unmet need for surgery is high. With a growing population, the need for paediatric surgical capacity will increase even further. The health care system must be reinforced to provide services for children with surgical conditions if United Nations Sustainability Development Goal 3 is to be achieved by 2030.

What Is the Role of Plastic Surgery in Global Health? A Review.

There is growing awareness of the substantial global burden of surgical disease. Conditions treated effectively by plastic and reconstructive procedures make a large proportion of the global surgical diseases, and disproportionately affect individuals at the lower end of the economic spectrum. This article reviews the role of plastic surgery in global health, highlights the ongoing need for plastic and reconstructive surgery globally, and increasing efforts that have been made to meet these needs. There global shortage of plastic surgeons in low and middle income countries, but plastic surgery has a long tradition of humanitarian aid, has been a leader in global surgery development. Plastic and reconstructive surgical care has increasingly been shown to be cost effective and to have an immense impact on the economy of a region, delivering a substantial return on investment. More sustainable global surgical care is essential in future, requiring ongoing efforts from the plastic surgery community, greater recognition of the problems that can be addressed at policy level, and research to help guide policy-makers when facing the decision of allocating scarce resources. There is a fundamental role of plastic surgery in global health.

Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Global Health: Let's Reconstruct Global Surgery.

Summary:Since the inception of the Lancet Commission in 2013 and consequent prioritization of Global Surgery at the World Health Assembly, international surgical outreach efforts have increased and become more synergistic. Plastic surgeons have been involved in international outreach for decades, and there is now a demand to collaborate and address local need in an innovative way. The aim of this article was to summarize new developments in plastic and reconstructive surgery in global health, to unify our approach to international outreach. Specifically, 5 topics are explored: current models in international outreach, benefits and concerns, the value of research, the value of international surgical outreach education, and the value of technology. A “Let’s Reconstruct Global Surgery” network has been formed using Facebook as a platform to unite plastic and reconstructive surgeons worldwide who are interested in international outreach. The article concludes with actionable recommendations from each topic.

Pediatric Hand Surgery in Global Health: The Role for International Outreach.

There is emerging interest in hand surgery and global health. This was emphasized at the 2015 presidential address at the American Society for Surgery of Hand. Children are prioritized because of their increased risk for trauma and higher potential for better outcomes. This study aims to identify how hand surgical volunteer programs can benefit the pediatric hand surgical landscape in global health. There has been no literature review to date. This institutional review board-approved review systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Medline, African Journal Online, and the Journal of Hand Surgery. A scoping review methodology was selected to allow mapping of a body of literature by topic, include a greater range of study designs, and provide a descriptive overview of the reviewed material. All studies published between 2000 to March 2016 relevant to pediatric hand surgery in global health were included. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses was used to record the search results. Six hundred sixty-eight citations were reviewed, with 10 studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria. Hand trauma (70%), congenital anomalies (30%), tumors (20%), surgical technique (50%), and international outreach recommendation (30%) were common themes. Targeting prevention (50%), international outreach education (30%), and building on previous studies to validate findings study (10%) were identified as gaps.

The role of plastic surgery in global health: A narrative review

Background: There is growing awareness of the substantial global burden of surgical disease. Conditions treated effectively by plastic and reconstructive procedures make a large proportion of the global surgical diseases, and disproportionately affect individuals at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Methods: This article reviews the role of plastic surgery in global health, highlights the ongoing need for plastic and reconstructive surgery globally, and increasing efforts that have been made to meet these needs. Results: There global shortage of plastic surgeons in low and middle income countries, but plastic surgery has a long tradition of humanitarian aid, has been a leader in global surgery development. Plastic and reconstructive surgical care has increasingly been shown to be cost effective and to have an immense impact on the economy of a region, delivering a substantial return on investment. More sustainable global surgical care is essential in future, requiring ongoing efforts from the plastic surgery community, greater recognition of the problems that can be addressed at policy level, and research to help guide policy-makers when facing the decision of allocating scarce resources. Conclusion: There is a fundamental role of plastic surgery in global health.

The Expanding Role of Education and Research in International Healthcare.

A recent report of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery has continued to emphasize the importance of surgery in global health. Plastic surgeons have been involved in humanitarian care of children in developing countries for many years. The ability to repair children with cleft lip and palate in resource-poor settings has made this desirable for many plastic surgeons. A number of philanthropic plastic surgery organizations arose to deal with the problem in a more structured way. Dr. Donald Laub at Stanford established Interplast (now ReSurg) in 1969. Dr. Bill and Kathy Magee established Operation Smile in 1982, and many others have followed. The unifying theme of these organizations has been the desire to provide safe and effective surgical care to children who would otherwise be forced to live out their lives with deformity. Most care has been for children with clefts, but efforts have expanded to include hand surgery and burn reconstruction. The initial effort was provided through surgical missions. A paradigm shift has occurred as sustainability and local capacity have become paramount. Education and training of local colleagues and assistance in surgical safety infrastructure are expanding the reach of plastic surgical care around the globe. The inauguration of in-country permanent surgical centers allows high-volume outcomes research, as well as unique educational collaboration between plastic surgeons of both the developed and developing world.

Global safe anaesthesia and surgery initiatives: implications for anaesthesia in the Pacific region.

In 2015 three major events occurred for global anaesthesia and surgery. In January, the World Bank published Disease Control Priorities 3rd edition (DCP 3rd edition). This volume, Essential Surgery, highlighted the cost effective role of anaesthesia and surgery in global health. In April, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery released its report "Global Surgery 2030: Evidence and solutions for achieving health, welfare, and economic development". The report focuses on five key areas to promote change including: access to timely surgery, surgical workforce and procedural capability, surgical volume, data collection such as perioperative mortality rate, and financial protection. In May, the 68th World Health Assembly (WHA) voted in favour of Resolution A68/31: Strengthening emergency and essential surgical and anaesthesia care as a component of universal health coverage. The resolution was passed unanimously and it is the first time that surgery and anaesthesia have received such prominence at WHA level. These three events all have profound implications for the provision and access of safe anaesthesia and surgery in the Pacific region in the next 15 years. This article considers some of the regional factors that affect these five key areas, especially with regard to anaesthetic specialist workforce density in different parts of the region. There are many challenges to improve anaesthesia access, safety, and workforce density in the Pacific region. Future efforts, initiatives and support will help address these problems.

Inequitable Access to Timely Cleft Palate Surgery in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

Delayed cleft palate repair has significant implications for physical, mental, and social well-being and has been suggested to lead to an increased risk of infant and under-five mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using medical records from Operation Smile international programs taking place in eleven different LMICs between March and May 2014, we performed a logistic regression assessing the relationship between delayed surgery access, defined as primary palatoplasty presentation after 24 months of age, and GDP per capita across 11 countries. Median age of presentation ranged from 13 to 24 months in upper-middle-income countries, 17 to 35 months in lower-middle-income countries, and 14 to 66 months in low-income countries. Our analysis demonstrated a 14 % increase in the odds of late surgery [OR = 0.88 (P < 0.001)] for every 1000 USD decrease of GDP per capita. In low- and lower-middle-income countries, this relationship was even stronger, with an OR of 0.59 (P < 0.001), indicating a 70 % increase in the odds of late surgery for every 1000 USD decrease in GDP per capita. There is a strong negative correlation between national income status and delayed access to primary cleft palate surgery, indicating a high degree of inequity in access to surgery, particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. As the importance of surgery in global health is increasingly recognized, an equity perspective must be included in the global dialog to ensure that the world's poor have fair and equitable access to essential surgical care.

Surgery and Obstetric Care are Highly Cost-Effective Interventions in a Sub-Saharan African District Hospital: A Three-Month Single-Institution Study of Surgical Costs and Outcomes.

The Lancet recently sponsored a commission examining the role of surgery in global health. There is a paucity of published information on the cost-effectiveness of surgery in low- and middle-income countries, a key metric in the prioritisation of limited resources. All patients undergoing emergency laparotomy, elective and emergency inguinal hernia repair, elective and emergency caesarean section, amputation, fracture manipulation, or fracture fixation over a 3 months period in a single district African hospital were assessed. World Health Organisation global burden of disease (GBD) methodology was used to calculate the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) saved for each patient (using global and local life expectancy). Fully loaded costs were calculated for each patient’s care and providing the overall surgical service. Cost-effectiveness was calculated in year 2012 US$ per DALY saved for each procedure and overall. A total of 428 patients were included, with an overall cost-effectiveness of $10.70 per DALY averted. The cost-effectiveness of individual procedures (global life expectancy) was: Amputation—$17.66; Emergency caesarean section—$7.42; Elective caesarean section—$20.50; Emergency laparotomy—$8.62; Elective hernia repair—$15.26; Emergency hernia repair—$4.36; Fracture/dislocation reduction—$69.03; Fracture/dislocation fixation—$225.89. Surgery is a highly cost-effective healthcare measure in the setting of an African district hospital. The presented outcomes demonstrate that surgery is on a par with better-recognised and funded interventions such as HIV anti-retrovirals, malaria prevention and diarrhoea treatment. There are recognised limitations with the GBD methodology used here; however, this remains the best way to investigate the cost-effectiveness of health interventions. This study provides useful information on an, at present, under-studied field.

Plastic Surgery in Global Health

There is increasing interest in US Medical schools in starting teaching programs in global settings. The University of Miami department of Family Medicine has been involved for the past 15 years in developing a training program in family medicine in Haiti. This experience, its challenges and accomplishments are reported. The creation and development of plastic surgery training in Haiti could greatly benefit from this pioneering effort.

The Role of Surgery in Global Health: Analysis of United States Inpatient Procedure Frequency by Condition Using the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Framework

BackgroundThe role of surgical care in promoting global health is the subject of much debate. The Global Burden of Disease 2010 study (GBD 2010) offers a new opportunity to consider where surgery fits amongst global health priorities. The GBD 2010 reinforces the DALY as the preferred methodology for determining the relative contribution of disease categories to overall global burden of disease without reference to the likelihood of each category requiring surgery. As such, we hypothesize that the GBD framework underestimates the role of surgery in addressing the global burden of disease.Methods and FindingsWe compiled International Classification of Diseases, Version 9, codes from the United States Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 2010. Using the primary diagnosis code for each hospital admission, we aggregated admissions into GBD 2010 disease sub-categories. We queried each hospitalization for a major operation to determine the frequency of admitted patients whose care required surgery. Major operation was defined according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In 2010, 10 million major inpatient operations were performed in the United States, associated with 28.6% of all admissions. Major operations were performed in every GBD disease subcategory (range 0.2%–84.0%). The highest frequencies of operation were in the subcategories of Musculoskeletal (84.0%), Neoplasm (61.4%), and Transport Injuries (43.2%). There was no disease subcategory that always required an operation; nor was there any disease subcategory that never required an operation.ConclusionsSurgical care cuts across the entire spectrum of GBD disease categories, challenging dichotomous traditional classifications of ‘surgical’ versus ‘nonsurgical’ diseases. Current methods of measuring global burden of disease do not reflect the fundamental role operative intervention plays in the delivery of healthcare services. Novel methodologies should be aimed at understanding the integration of surgical services into health systems to address the global burden of disease.

Traumatic near amputation secondary to hippopotamus attack: lessons for surgeons

A 34-y-old man presented to Naivasha District Hospital (NDH) in Naivasha Town, Kenya, with near-complete below-knee amputation and hemorrhage after a hippopotamus attack. Residents from the University of Washington (UW), Departments of Surgery, Anesthesia, and Medicine, were rotating at NDH with the Clinical Education Partnership Initiative, a joint venture of UW and University of Nairobi. These providers met the patient in the operating theater. The leg was mangled with severely traumatized soft tissues and tibia–fibula fractures. The visiting UW Surgery resident (R3) and an NDH medical officer (second-year house officer) performed emergency below-knee completion amputation—the first time either had performed this operation. The three major vessel groups were identified and ligated. Sufficient gastrocnemius and soleus were preserved for future stump construction. The wound was washed out, packed with betadine-soaked gauze, and wrapped in an elasticized bandage. Broad-spectrum antibiotics were initiated. Unfortunately, the patient suffered infection and was revised above the knee. After a prolonged course, the patient recovered well and was discharged home. NDH house officers and UW trainees collaborated successfully in an emergency and conducted the postoperative care of a patient with a serious and challenging injury. Their experience highlights the importance of preparedness, command of surgical basics, humility, learning from mistakes, the expertise of others, a digitally connected surgical community, and the role of surgery in global health. These lessons will be increasingly pertinent as surgical training programs create opportunities for their residents to work in developing countries; many of these lessons are equally applicable to surgical practice in the developed world.

Defining the role of surgery in global health: a systematic review of cost-effectiveness of surgery in developing countries

INTRODUCTION: Community-based surveillance methods to monitor epidemiological progress in surgery have not yet been employed for surgical capacity building. The goals of this study are twofold: to create a validated survey tool to easily measure surgical disease; and to accurately define the surgical epidemiology of a catchment population for a Partners In Health-supported district hospital in northern Rwanda.

The Political Economy of Emergency and Essential Surgery in Global Health

Emergency and essential surgery (EES) remains a low priority on global health agendas even though a growing body of evidence demonstrates that EES is a cost-effective public health intervention and that it holds the potential to prevent a sizable number of deaths and disabilities. The inferior status of EES should be considered, in part, a political problem and subject to political analysis. This type of political economy examination has been used for other important global health issues but has not been applied to EES. By addressing political concerns and prospects, EES can be better positioned on international agendas, thus improving surgical care delivered to the poor.