Clinical Scorecard: Climate Change and General Surgery: A Scoping Review of Impacts on Surgical Practice
At a Glance
Category
Detail
Condition
Climate change and its relationship to general surgical practice
Key Mechanisms
The authors describe possible pathways, including changes in surgical disease prevalence (for example, trauma or burn injuries) and surgical complications (including postoperative cardiovascular or pulmonary complications).
Target Population
Human participants in general surgery and subspecialties including surgical oncology, acute care surgery, trauma, and burn surgery.
Care Setting
The excerpt does not specify a clinical care setting.
Key Highlights
The scoping review aimed to map literature on climate change and general surgery, identify knowledge gaps, and establish research priorities.
The search was conducted on August 29, 2025, across four databases, without search filters or limiters.
The review followed PRISMA-ScR and included peer-reviewed, full-length English-language manuscripts involving human participants.
The supplied excerpt does not report screening totals, the number of included studies, or findings from included studies.
Guideline-Based Recommendations
Diagnosis
Management
Monitoring & Follow-up
Risks
The authors state that extreme weather could theoretically increase trauma or burn injuries and that climate change could affect postoperative cardiovascular or pulmonary complications.
Patient & Prescribing Data
The review included studies involving human participants in general surgery and specified subspecialties; no prescribing population is reported.
No medication or treatment recommendations are provided in the supplied excerpt.
Clinical Best Practices
The review adhered to the PRISMA-ScR framework.
Eligibility was limited to peer-reviewed, full-length English-language manuscripts involving human participants.
The review excluded gray literature, review articles, abstracts, perspective or opinion articles, and case reports or limited case series involving fewer than 20 patients.
by Kimberly P. Woo, Ali Alipouriani, Jenny H. Chang, William C. Bennett, Abby Gross, Divya Deverakonda, Nikhila Yerabandi, Mary Schleicher, Alberto Arezzo, Marina Yiasemidou, Maggie Hodges, Vittoria Bellato, Myrthe M. M. Eussen, Patricia Sylla, Shaneeta M. Johnson, Ilyssa O. Gordon, Sofya Asfaw, Benjamin T. Miller
Qualitative interviews suggested that physician relationships, community experiences, and economic concerns may contribute to treatment decisions alongside symptom severity.
