ArticleThe British journal of surgery2025
Global funding for surgical research between 2016 and 2020: content analysis of public and philanthropic investments.
Article in The British journal of surgery, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sustainable surgical financing through philanthropy: an analysis of contributions to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).BMJ global health · 2026Review
- The Landmark Series: Seminal Works in Global Cancer Surgery.Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Review
- The future of surgical research.The British journal of surgery · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSurgery is an intrinsic component of healthcare, estimated to be involved in the treatment of 28-32% of the global burden of disease. Research is crucial to improving the quality of surgical care and thus patient outcomes. The aim of this study was to analyse global patterns of public and philanthropic investment in surgical research.
methodsPublicly available databases of human surgical research funding awards between 2016 and 2020 were searched. Awards were categorized by surgical specialty, cross-cutting research theme, and phase of research.
resultsA total of 8042 awards were identified, with a total investment of $3.48 billion between 2016 and 2020 (approximately $0.7 billion annually), contrasting with $24.5 billion for cancer research in the same interval. Preclinical research received most of the funding ($2.46 billion (70.7%)), clinical trials received $0.72 billion (20.6%), and public health research received $0.30 billion (8.6%). By cross-cutting research theme, the largest investment was into intraoperative research ($1.4 billion (40.94%)), followed by postoperative research ($0.76 billion (21.9%)), preoperative/neoadjuvant studies ($0.43 billion (12.3%)), and interventional radiology ($0.04 billion (1.2%)). Global surgery was the least well-funded area of research ($0.03 billion (0.8%)).
conclusionSurgical research remains underfunded in comparison with other specialties, with most investment directed towards preclinical research, not directly involving patients. Only a small proportion was invested in clinical trials, public health, and global surgery. These findings limit the impact of surgical research on improving population health and contrast starkly with the ubiquity of surgical treatments in the management of the global burden of disease. Urgent prioritization of surgical research and evaluation of priorities in research investment are required, to reflect surgery's pivotal role in global healthcare.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.