Background Child health is a key priority on the global health agenda, yet the provision of essential and emergency surgery in children is patchy in resource-poor regions. This study was aimed to determine the mortality risk for emergency abdominal paediatric surgery in low-income countries globally. Methods Multicentre, international, prospective, cohort study. Self-selected surgical units performing emergency abdominal surgery submitted prespecified data for consecutive children aged <16 years during a 2-week period between July and December 2014. The United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI) was used to stratify countries. The main outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality, analysed by multilevel logistic regression. Results This study included 1409 patients from 253 centres in 43 countries; 282 children were under 2 years of age. Among them, 265 (18.8%) were from low-HDI, 450 (31.9%) from middle-HDI and 694 (49.3%) from high-HDI countries. The most common operations performed were appendectomy, small bowel resection, pyloromyotomy and correction of intussusception. After adjustment for patient and hospital risk factors, child mortality at 30 days was significantly higher in low-HDI (adjusted OR 7.14 (95% CI 2.52 to 20.23), p<0.001) and middle-HDI (4.42 (1.44 to 13.56), p=0.009) countries compared with high-HDI countries, translating to 40 excess deaths per 1000 procedures performed. Conclusions Adjusted mortality in children following emergency abdominal surgery may be as high as 7 times greater in low-HDI and middle-HDI countries compared with high-HDI countries. Effective provision of emergency essential surgery should be a key priority for global child health agendas. Trial registration number NCT02179112; Pre-results.

PURPOSE:Timely administration of adjuvant chemotherapy following colorectal resection is associated with improved outcome. We aim to assess the factors which are associated with delay to adjuvant chemotherapy in patients who underwent colorectal resection as part of an enhanced recovery protocol.METHOD:A univariate and multivariate analysis of patient data collected as part of a prospectively maintained database of colorectal cancer patients between 2007 and 2012.RESULTS:166 patients underwent colorectal resection followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. Median postoperative hospital stay was 6 days, and time to commencement of adjuvant chemotherapy was 50 days. Longer inpatient stay correlated with increased time to adjuvant chemotherapy (P = 0.05). Factors found to be independently associated with duration of hospital stay and time to commencement of adjuvant chemotherapy included stoma formation (P = 0.032), anastaomotic leak (P = 0.027), and preoperative albumin (P = 0.027). The use of laparoscopic surgery was associated with shorter time to adjuvant chemotherapy but did not reach significance (P = 0.143).CONCLUSION:A number of independent variables associated with delay to adjuvant therapy previously not described have been identified. Further work may be required to elucidate the effect that these variables have on long-term outcome.