WEDNESDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) -- About 234 million major surgeries are performed worldwide each year, and surgery rates are much higher in high-income countries than in low-income countries, U.S. researchers report.
Dr. Thomas Weiser, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and his colleagues defined major surgeries as any incision, excision, manipulation or suturing of tissue occurring in an operating room and requiring local or general anesthesia or profound sedation to control pain. They analyzed surgical data from 56 countries.
