Scoping review: The terminology used to describe major abdominal surgical procedures

Major abdominal surgery (MAS) can have a profound impact on the patient but there is currently no consensus as to which surgical procedures constitute MAS. The main objective of this work is to ascertain the terminology used to describe MAS procedures and to apply these findings in order to propose a definition of MAS.

The following databases were searched: Ovid MEDLINE (R) ALL, Embase Classic and Embase (via OvidSP), Global Health (via OvidSP), Health Management Information Consortium (via OvidSP), APA PsycInfo (via OvidSP), PubMed and Web of Science. Original research articles, published between 1980 and April 26, 2022 that contained a description of MAS procedure were included in this study. Article screening and data extraction was undertaken independently by 3 authors. Content analysis was performed to identify key terminology used to describe MAS.

Five thousand six hundred and sixty three articles were identified, of which 767 underwent full-text review and 312 were included in the scoping review. Content analysis resulted in 4 main categories: (1) pre-operative factors, (2) intraoperative factors, (3) operation-related factors, (4) post-operative factors. Operation-related factors was the predominant category (1137 references coded). The gastrointestinal resection made the vast majority of the references coded (591).

Based on these results, the term "major abdominal surgery" should be defined as an intra-peritoneal operation with no primary involvement of the thorax, involving either luminal resection and/or resection of a solid organ associated with the gastrointestinal tract. However, further work is required to verify this definition using real world data.