Surgical outcomes research in LMICs: a narrative review

Surgical outcomes research is sparse in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is due to poor funding, lack of human resources, and inadequate infrastructure. However, a growing number of collaborative small collection of large multinational and multicentered studies have been successfully performed. These studies have overcome regulatory and logistical hurdles and have shown that collecting such data in the LMIC setting is possible.underscore the drive and capabilities of LMIC researchers.

A review of the literature using PubMed was performed for multicenter and multinational studies on surgical outcomes in LMICs.

All studies collected a diverse array of postoperative outcomes including complications and mortality. Multiple studies performed adjusted analyses to allow for identification of independent risk factors of surgical outcomes. Each study reinforced that outcomes in LMICs are markedly worse than in HICs.

These studies showed that outcomes research is feasible and needed in LMICs. In this review we summarize each of these impactful studies and present strengths, weaknesses, commonalities and gaps that remain.