The Operative Burden of General Surgical Disease and Non-Battle Injury in a Deployed Military Treatment Facility in Afghanistan.

Abstract

Contemporary medical operations support a mobile, nonconventional force involved in nation building, counterinsurgency, and humanitarian operations. Prior reports have described surgical care for disease and nonbattle injuries (DNBI). The purpose of this report is to describe the prevalence and scope of DNBI managed by general surgeons in a contemporary, deployed medical facility.A 2-year retrospective review of the operative logbook from the U.K. Role 3 Multinational Hospital, Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, was performed to determine the prevalence and makeup of procedures performed for DNBI by general surgeons.Nontrauma general surgical procedures accounted for 7.7% (n = 279 of 3,607 cases) of cases; appendectomy (n = 146) was the most common, followed by drainage of soft tissue (n = 55) and oral abscesses (n = 5), scrotal exploration (n = 12), and hernia repair (n = 7). A total of 7.2% (n = 20 of 279) of cases fell outside the standard scope of practice of an urban, civilian general surgeon.Although the prevalence of operative procedures for DNBI was low, the spectrum of cases included those not typically managed in the civilian setting of the United Kingdom. With an evolving decline in case volume performed in multiple anatomic locations due to subspecialization during surgical training, this gap in expertise is likely to increase.