Neurosurgery in Pakistan: Past, Present, and Future

Since its independence from India in 1947, Pakistan has struggled with economic crises such as global debt, corruption, constant regime change, and a decades-long war against terrorism. The resulting socioeconomic barriers have stymied efforts to develop a comprehensive and equitably accessible healthcare system, especially regarding safe, timely, and affordable surgical care. This article evaluates neurosurgery's development, current state, and prospects in Pakistan, a lower-middle-income country.

We performed a literature search using PubMed and analyzed relevant articles to better understand the state and landscape of neurosurgery in Pakistan. Moreover, we conducted ecological research by querying the databases of the World Bank and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation to evaluate the neurological and neurosurgical disease burden in the Pakistani population.

The neurosurgical workforce in Pakistan has demonstrated rapid growth over the past two decades, with approximately 450 neurosurgeons and a neurosurgeon-per-100 000 population density of 0.114. Nonetheless, access to essential neurosurgical procedures for the treatment of diseases such as stroke has been difficult to ensure, which likely contributes to Pakistan's stroke burden, ie, stroke was still the third most common cause of death in 2019, causing 21.7% of all deaths.

While Pakistan's political and economic instability has adversely affected the development of neurosurgery, the field has still made great strides and demonstrates a promising future in providing equitable neurosurgical care to all Pakistan's people.