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Background: Many potentially treatable non-congenital and non-traumatic surgical conditions can occur during the first 8000 days of life and an estimated 85% of children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will develop one before 15 years old. This review summarizes the common routine surgical emergencies in children from LMICs and their effects on morbidity and mortality., Methods: A narrative review was undertaken to assess the epidemiology, treatment, and outcomes of common surgical emergencies that present within the first 8000 days (or 21.9 years) of life in LMICs. Available data on pediatric surgical emergency care in LMICs were aggregated., Results: Outside of trauma, acute appendicitis, ileal perforation secondary to typhoid fever, and intestinal obstruction from intussusception and hernias continue to be the most common abdominal emergencies among children in LMICs. Musculoskeletal infections also contribute significantly to the surgical burden in children. These "neglected" conditions disproportionally affect children in LMICs and are due to delays in seeking care leading to late presentation and preventable complications. Pediatric surgical emergencies also necessitate heavy resource utilization in LMICs, where healthcare systems are already under strain., Conclusions: Delays in care and resource limitations in LMIC healthcare systems are key contributors to the complicated and emergent presentation of pediatric surgical disease. Timely access to surgery can not only prevent long-term impairments but also preserve the impact of public health interventions and decrease costs in the overall healthcare system., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: Congenital anomalies are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We aimed to review the common surgically correctable congenital anomalies with recent updates on the global disease burden and identify the factors affecting morbidity and mortality., Method: A literature review was done to assess the burden of surgical congenital anomalies with emphasis on those that present within the first 8000 days of life. The various patterns of diseases were analyzed in both low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and high-income countries (HIC)., Results: Surgical problems such as digestive congenital anomalies, congenital heart disease and neural tube defects are now seen more frequently. The burden of disease weighs more heavily on LMIC. Cleft lip and palate has gained attention and appropriate treatment within many countries, and its care has been strengthened by global surgical partnerships. Antenatal scans and timely diagnosis are important factors affecting morbidity and mortality. The frequency of pregnancy termination following prenatal diagnosis of a congenital anomaly is lower in many LMIC than in HIC., Conclusion: Congenital heart disease and neural tube defects are the most common congenital surgical diseases; however, easily treatable gastrointestinal anomalies are underdiagnosed due to the invisible nature of the condition. Current healthcare systems in most LMICs are still unprepared to tackle the burden of disease caused by congenital anomalies. Increased investment in surgical services is needed., (© 2023. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Société Internationale de Chirurgie.)

Background: Surgical care is an important, yet often neglected component of child health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study examines the potential impact of scaling up surgical care at first-level hospitals in LMICs within the first 20 years of life., Methods: Epidemiological data from the global burden of disease 2019 Study and a counterfactual method developed for the disease control priorities; 3rd Edition were used to estimate the number of treatable deaths in the under 20 year age group if surgical care could be scaled up at first-level hospitals. Our model included three digestive diseases, four maternal and neonatal conditions, and seven common traumatic injuries., Results: An estimated 314,609 (95% UI, 239,619-402,005) deaths per year in the under 20 year age group could be averted if surgical care were scaled up at first-level hospitals in LMICs. Most of the treatable deaths are in the under-5 year age group (80.9%) and relates to improved obstetrical care and its effect on reducing neonatal encephalopathy due to birth asphyxia and trauma. Injuries are the leading cause of treatable deaths after age 5 years. Sixty-one percent of the treatable deaths occur in lower middle-income countries. Overall, scaling up surgical care at first-level hospitals could avert 5·1% of the total deaths in children and adolescents under 20 years of age in LMICs per year., Conclusions: Improving the capacity of surgical services at first-level hospitals in LMICs has the potential to avert many deaths within the first 20 years of life., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

About 1.7 billion children and adolescents, mostly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) lack access to surgical care. While some of these countries have developed surgical plans and others are in the process of developing theirs, children's surgery has not received the much-needed specific emphasis and focus in these plans. With the significant burden of children's surgical conditions especially in low- and middle-income countries, universal health coverage and the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) will not be achieved without deliberate efforts to scale up access to children's surgical care. Inclusion of children's surgery in National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) can be done using the Global Initiative for Children's Surgery (GICS)-modified Children's Surgical Assessment Tool (CSAT) tool for baseline assessment and the Optimal Resources for Children Surgical Care (OReCS) as a foundational tool for implementation.

Introduction: Surgery plays a critical role in sustainable healthcare systems. Validated metrics exist to guide implementation of surgical services, but low-income countries (LIC) struggle to report recommended metrics and this poses a critical barrier to addressing unmet need. We present a comprehensive national sample of surgical encounters from a LIC by assessing the National Health Services of Mozambique., Material and Methods: A prospective cohort of all surgical encounters from Mozambique's National Health Service was gathered for all provinces between July and December 2015. Primary outcomes were timely access, provider densities for surgery, anesthesiology, and obstetrics (SAO) per 100,000 population, annualized surgical procedure volume per 100,000, and postoperative mortality (POMR). Secondary outcomes include operating room density and efficiency., Results: Fifty-four hospitals had surgical capacity in 11 provinces with 47,189 surgeries. 44.9% of Mozambique's population lives in Districts without access to surgical services. National SAO density was 1.2/100,000, ranging from 0.4/100,000 in Manica Province to 9.8/100,000 in Maputo City. Annualized national surgical case volume was 367 procedures/100,000 population, ranging from 180/100,000 in Zambezia Province to 1,897/100,000 in Maputo City. National POMR was 0.74% and ranged from 0.23% in Maputo Province to 1.78% in Niassa Province., Discussion: Surgical delivery in Mozambique falls short of international targets. Subnational deficiencies and variations between provinces pose targets for quality improvement in advancing national surgical plans. This serves as a template for LICs to follow in gathering surgical metrics for the WHO and the World Bank and offers short- and long-term targets for surgery as a component of health systems strengthening.

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as atherosclerosis and cancers, are a leading cause of death worldwide. An important, yet poorly explained epidemiological feature of NCDs is their low incidence in under developed areas of low-income countries and rising rates in urban areas., Methods: With the goal of better understanding how urbanization increases the incidence of NCDs, we provide an overview of the urbanization process in sub-Saharan Africa, discuss gene expression differences between rural and urban populations, and review the current NCD determinant model. We conclude by identifying research priorities., Results: Declining rates of chronic and recurrent infection are the hallmark of urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa. Gene profiling studies show urbanization results in complex molecular changes, with almost one-third of the peripheral blood leukocyte transcriptome altered. The current NCD determinant model could be improved by including a possible effect from declining rates of infection and expanding the spectrum of diseases that increase with urbanization., Conclusions: Urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa provides a unique opportunity to investigate the mechanism by which the environment influences disease epidemiology. Research priorities include: (1) studies to define the relationship between infection and risk factors for NCDs, (2) explaining the observed differences in the inflammatory response between rural and urban populations, and (3) identification of animal models that simulate the biological changes that occurs with urbanization. A better understanding of the biological changes that occur with urbanization could lead to new prevention and treatment strategies for some of the most common surgical diseases in high-income countries.

Background: We previously identified a range of 4344-5028 annual operations per 100,000 people to be related to desirable health outcomes. From this and other evidence, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery recommends a minimum rate of 5000 operations per 100,000 people. We evaluate rates of growth and estimate the time it will take to reach this minimum surgical rate threshold., Methods: We aggregated country-level surgical rate estimates from 2004 to 2012 into the twenty-one Global Burden of Disease (GBD) regions. We calculated mean rates of surgery proportional to population size for each year and assessed the rate of growth over time. We then extrapolated the time it will take each region to reach a surgical rate of 5000 operations per 100,000 population based on linear rates of change., Results: All but two regions experienced growth in their surgical rates during the past 8 years. Fourteen regions did not meet the recommended threshold in 2012. If surgical capacity continues to grow at current rates, seven regions will not meet the threshold by 2035. Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa will not reach the recommended threshold until 2124., Conclusion: The rates of growth in surgical service delivery are exceedingly variable. At current rates of surgical and population growth, 6.2 billion people (73% of the world's population) will be living in countries below the minimum recommended rate of surgical care in 2035. A strategy for strengthening surgical capacity is essential if these targets are to be met in a timely fashion as part of the integrated health system development.

Background: While surgical care impacts a wide variety of diseases and conditions with non-operative and operative services, both preventive and curative, there has been little discussion concerning how surgery might be integrated within the health system of a low and middle-income country (LMIC), nor how strengthening surgical services may improve health systems and population health., Methods: We reviewed reports from several meetings of the working group on health systems strengthening of the Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care, and also performed a review of the literature including the search terms "surgery," "health system," "developing country," "health systems strengthening," "health information system," "financing," "governance," and "integration.", Results: The literature search revealed no reports which focused on the integration of surgical services within a health system or as a component of health system strengthening. A conceptual model of how surgical care might be integrated within a health system is proposed, based on the discussions of our working group, combined with sources from the medical literature, and utilizing the World Health Organization's conceptual model of a health system., Conclusions: Strengthening the delivery of surgical services in LMICs will require inputs at multiple levels within a health system, and this effort will require the coalescence of committed individuals and organizations, supported by civil society.

Background: Injuries accounted for 11 % of the global burden of disease in 2010. This study aimed to quantify the burden of injury in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that could be averted if basic surgical services were made available and accessible to the entire population., Methods: We examined all causes of injury from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study. We split the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for these conditions between surgically "avertable" and "nonavertable" burdens. For estimating the avertable fatal burden, we applied the lowest fatality rates among the 21 epidemiologic regions to each LMIC region, assuming that the differences in death rates between each region and the lowest rates reflect the gap in surgical care. We adjusted for fatal cases that occur prior to reaching hospitals as they are not surgically avertable. Similarly, we applied the lowest nonfatal burden per case to each LMIC region., Results: Overall, 21 % of the injury burden in LMICs was potentially avertable by basic surgical care (52.3 million DALYs). The avertable proportion was greater for deaths than for nonfatal burden (23 vs. 20 %), suggesting that surgical services for injuries more effectively save lives than ameliorate disability. Sub-Saharan Africa had the largest proportion of potentially avertable burden (25 %). South Asia had the highest total avertable DALYs (17.4 million). Road injury comprised the largest total avertable burden in LMICs (16.1 million DALYs)., Conclusions: Basic surgical care has the potential to play a major role in reducing the injury-related burden in LMICs.

Background: Risk adjustment is an important component of surgical outcomes and quality analyses. Current models include numerous preoperative variables; however, the relative contribution of these variables may be limited. This research seeks to identify a model with the fewest number of variables necessary to perform an adequate risk adjustment to predict any inpatient adverse event for use in resource-limited settings., Methods: All patients from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database from 2005 to 2010 were included. Outcomes were inpatient mortality or any surgical complication captured by NSQIP. Models were built by sequential addition of preoperative risk variables selected by their area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC)., Results: Among 863,349 patients, the single variable with the highest AUC was American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification (AUC = 0.7127). AUC values reached 0.7923 with five variables (ASA classification, wound classification, functional status prior to surgery, albumin, and age) and 0.7945 with six variables. The sixth variable was one of the following: alkaline phosphatase, weight loss, principal anesthesia technique, gender, or emergency status. The model with the highest discrimination that did not require laboratories included ASA classification, functional status prior to surgery, wound classification, and age (AUC = 0.7810). Including all 66 preoperative variables produced little additional gain (AUC = 0.8006)., Conclusions: Six variables are sufficient to develop a risk adjustment tool for inpatient surgical mortality and morbidity. This research has important implications for the field of surgical outcomes research by improving efficiency of data collection. This limited model can aid the expansion of risk-adjusted analyses to resource-limited settings worldwide.

Background: The World Health Organization has identified the primary referral hospital as its priority site for improving surgical care in low- and middle-income countries. Little is known about the relative burden surgical patients place on health care facilities at this level. This research estimates the fraction of admissions due to surgical conditions at three hospitals in rural Mozambique., Methods: Prospective data were collected on all inpatients at three primary referral hospitals in Mozambique during a 12-day period. We compared the number of surgical patients and their length of stay (LOS) to the patients admitted to the medicine, pediatric, and maternity wards. These findings were validated using retrospective data collected from one hospital from January to May 2012., Results: Patients with surgical conditions (i.e., patients admitted to the surgical or maternity ward) accounted for 57.5 % of admissions and 48.0 % of patient-days. The majority of patients were admitted to the maternity ward (32.3 %). The other admissions were evenly distributed to the pediatric (22.5 %), medical (20.0 %), and surgical (25.2 %) wards. Compared to patients from the three other wards, surgical patients had longer average LOS (8.7 vs. 1.9-7.7 days) and a higher number of total patient-days (891 vs. 252-703 days). The most prevalent procedures were cesarean section (33.3 %) and laceration repair/wound care (11.8 %)., Conclusions: Surgical conditions are the most common reason for admissions at three primary referral hospitals in rural Mozambique. These data suggest that surgical care is a major component of health care delivered at primary referral hospitals in Mozambique and likely other sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: The study was designed to examine the epidemiology of appendicitis and risk factors of perforation and appendectomy., Methods: Retrospective analysis of the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development Patient Discharge Data was performed from 1995 to 2009. Patients with appendicitis were identified by ICD-9 diagnosis code. Population statistics from the RAND Corporation were used to calculate incidence rates. Risk factors of perforation and appendectomy were also calculated., Results: A total of 608,116 patients with appendicitis (70% non-perforated) were included. The incidence increased at an average rate of 0.5 cases/100,000 population/year (p<0.001), with annual incidence peaking during the third quarter. Children age 10-14 had the highest rates of appendicitis (169.6 cases/100,000). The lifetime cumulative incidence rate is 9.0%. Appendicitis is most common in whites and Hispanics and less common in African Americans and Asians. Risks of perforation include Hispanic or Asian race, young or old age, and non-private insurance. The adjusted odds of appendectomy increased since 1995 in patients with non-perforated appendicitis (OR 1.5, 95% CI (1.3-1.7); p<0.001), but it decreased in patients with perforated appendicitis (OR 0.4, 95% CI (0.4-0.5); p<0.001)., Conclusions: This is the largest epidemiological study of appendicitis to our knowledge in recent years. Incidence has increased over time and is higher in the summer months. Whites and Hispanics have higher rates of appendicitis, but Hispanics and Asians and patients with non-private insurance, have higher odds of perforation. Surgical management of perforated appendicitis has decreased over time. It is unknown why the incidence has increased, displays seasonality, and varies by race.

In response to increasing evidence that surgical conditions are an important global public health problem, and data suggesting that essential surgical services can be delivered in a cost-effective manner in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) has expanded its interest in surgical care. In 2004, WHO established a Clinical Procedures Unit within the Department of Essential Health Technologies. This unit has developed the Emergency and Essential Surgical Project (EESC), which includes a basic surgical training program based on the "Integrated Management of Emergency and Essential Surgical Care" Toolkit and the textbook "Surgery at the District Hospital." To promote the importance of emergency and essential surgical care, a Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Care was launched in 2005. In what maybe the most important development, surgical care is included in WHO's new comprehensive primary health care plan. Given these rapid developments, surgical care at WHO may be approaching a critical "tipping point." Lobbying for a World Health Assembly resolution on emergency and essential surgical care, and developing "structured collaborations" between WHO and various stakeholders are potential ways to ensure that the global surgery agenda continues to move forward.

The term "Western diseases" refers to those conditions that are rare or absent in underdeveloped areas of the Third World and increase in frequency with adoptions of Western customs. In adults, they include such common conditions as coronary artery disease, essential hypertension, appendicitis, cholesterol gall stones, and colon cancer. The best examples of Western diseases in the pediatric population are asthma, allergies, appendicitis, and inflammatory bowel disease. Limited data from sub-Saharan Africa suggest other pediatric surgical conditions may fall into this category, including hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, gastroesophageal reflux, perirectal abscess, anal fissure, gastroschesis, and neuroblastoma. Existing theories for the origins of Western diseases have postulated a role for decreased dietary fiber, improved hygiene, fetal programming, and a protective effect of tropical enteropathy. How these factors might relate to the rise of appendicitis, inflammatory bowel disease, and possibly other common pediatric surgical diseases in industrialized societies remains poorly understood. Further research is needed to better define geographical differences in common pediatric surgical conditions and to investigate how genetic and environmental factors interact to modify risk of disease. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Western diseases could lead to new therapeutic and prevention strategies for some of the most common pediatric surgical conditions in industrialized countries.

There is no doubt that the effects of war extend to the most vulnerable members of society, including children. Although armed conflicts occur throughout the world, the African continent seems to be a particular background for civil and international wars. The aim of this study was to identify causes of conflict in Africa and to evaluate the effect of war on children and their health in order to make practical recommendations to health care workers dealing with children in the setting of war. All articles written in the past 5 years concerning "war" and "children" were identified by means of a literature search and internet review. Contrary to common belief, the causes of conflict are complicated and multi-factorial. The effects of war on childhood are disastrous and include severe negative effects on general paediatric health status. Short-term recommendations for health care workers working with children in war include supply of emergency medical infrastructures, basic health care, rehabilitation and education. Long-term recommendations include orchestrating the relief and support efforts from both national governments and international non-profit organisations and speeding up of economic recovery. The causes of conflict in Africa are complex and unlikely to be resolved soon. The effects of war on children are horrendous in many ways, but can be limited by providing timely and appropriate health care.

Pediatric surgery in sub-Saharan Africa is disadvantaged by the large number of sick children, disease patterns specific to the region, late presentation, and advanced pathology. In addition, it is practiced in an environment of limited resources and facilities and other health priorities. Obstacles to better pediatric-surgical care (PSC) include a general lack of interest in surgical conditions affecting African children, its poorly defined role, and a lack of political commitment by governments and international agencies to see surgical care of children improve. Pediatric-surgical practice in Africa must be cognizant of the factors that limit delivery of surgical services and work toward developing cost-effective strategies that benefit the largest number of children. Demonstrating that childhood surgical conditions are a significant public health-care problem is the most likely way to change health-care policy and to ensure adequate resources for PSC. Other priorities should be to define a cost-effective package of pediatric surgical services, improve PSC at the community level, and strengthen pediatric surgical-education.