Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Apr 27, 2024; 16(4): 1155-1164
Published online Apr 27, 2024. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i4.1155
Quality-adjusted life years and surgical waiting list: Systematic review of the literature
Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, Lorena Ortega Azor, Marina Hernández Yuste, Ludovica Gorini, Raquel Aránzazu Latorre-Fragua, Daniel Alejandro Díaz Candelas, Farah Al Shwely Abduljabar, Ignacio Antonio Gemio del Rey
Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, Ludovica Gorini, Raquel Aránzazu Latorre-Fragua, Daniel Alejandro Díaz Candelas, Farah Al Shwely Abduljabar, Ignacio Antonio Gemio del Rey, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Guadalajara 19002, Spain
Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, Lorena Ortega Azor, Marina Hernández Yuste, Raquel Aránzazu Latorre-Fragua, Farah Al Shwely Abduljabar, Ignacio Antonio Gemio del Rey, Department of Surgery, Medical and Social Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares 28871, Madrid, Spain
Author contributions: de la Plaza Llamas R, Ortega Azor L, Hernández Yuste M, Gorini L, Latorre-Fragua RA, Díaz Candelas DA, Al Shwely Abduljabar F, and Gemio del Rey IA contributed to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data; de la Plaza Llamas R, Ortega Azor L, Hernández Yuste M, Gorini L, Latorre-Fragua RA, Díaz Candelas DA, Al Shwely Abduljabar F, and Gemio del Rey IA drafted the article or made critical revisions to important intellectual content in the manuscript; All authors gave final approval of the version of the article to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Roberto de la Plaza Llamas, FACS, MD, MSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Chief Physician, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Calle del donante de sangre s/n, Guadalajara 19002, Spain. dlplr@yahoo.es
Received: December 28, 2023
Peer-review started: December 28, 2023
First decision: January 16, 2024
Revised: January 26, 2024
Accepted: February 25, 2024
Article in press: February 25, 2024
Published online: April 27, 2024
Processing time: 115 Days and 14.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This review determined that the quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) lost on surgical waiting lists (SWLs) have not been evaluated in the literature. The relationship between QALYs and SWLs has been described mainly in organ transplantation and in experimental models. The willingness-to-pay per QALY gained ranged from $100000 in the United States to €20000 in Spain. Future research should address this question, as the information recorded is likely to be of value to health systems that are planning investments aimed at reducing SWLs and cutting costs.