A comparison of surgery wait times and postoperative length of hospital stay among patients with brain tumors by country-level income and healthcare system: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The current study highlights the differences in surgery wait times and postoperative length of hospital stay (LOS) for brain tumor patients between high income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and across countries with different payer health systems. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Outcomes of interest were surgery wait time and postoperative LOS. RESULTS: Fifty-three articles were included totaling 456,432 patients. Five studies discussed surgery wait times and 27 discussed LOS. Three HIC studies reported mean surgery wait time of 4 days (SD not reported), 33 ± 13 days, and 34 ± 39 days, and 2 LMIC studies reported median surgery wait time of 4.6 (1-15) and 50 (13-703) days. Mean LOS was 5.1 days (95% CI: 4.2-6.1 days) from 24 HIC studies and 10.0 days (95% CI: 4.6-15.6 days) from 8 LMIC studies respectively. Mean LOS was 5.0 days (95% CI: 3.9-6.0 days) from countries with mixed payer system, and 7.7 days (95% CI: 4.8-10.5 days) from countries with single payer systems. CONCLUSION: There is limited data on surgery wait-times yet slightly more data on postoperative LOS. Despite a wide range of wait times, mean LOS in brain tumor patients tended to be longer in LMICs than HICs and longer for countries with single payer health systems than mixed payer health systems. Further studies are needed to evaluate surgery wait times and LOS for brain tumor patients more accurately.