• Sharukh Zuberi, Abdullah Egiz, Hasan Iqbal, Periyathambi Jambulingam, Douglas Whitelaw, Tanveer Adil, Vigyan Jain, Omar Al-Taan, Aruna Munasinghe, Alan Askari, Mohamed K Aly, and Fahad M Iqbal.
• Department of General Surgery, Luton & Dunstable Hospital, Luton, UK.
• Br J Surg. 2024 Mar 2; 111 (3).

BackgroundMetabolic bariatric surgery tourism continues to rise and has become a growing concern for bariatric surgeons globally. With varying degrees of regulation, counselling and success, those that develop complications may have to deal with a multitude of challenges often distant from their country of operation. The aim of this study was to characterize the barriers and facilitators influencing individuals to undergo metabolic bariatric surgery tourism, in order to better understand the implications to the National Health Service and other healthcare systems.MethodsA systematic literature search, restricted to the English language, was performed to identify relevant studies. All studies were included until December 2022, the last search date. Study quality was assessed with the validated mixed-methods appraisal tool. A Braun and Clarke thematic analysis was undertaken to identify themes and subthemes.ResultsA total of five studies met the inclusion criteria. Identified themes included: availability, accessibility, cost, eligibility, reputation, and stigma; the available evidence was of varying quality.ConclusionThis work identifies a series of subthemes influencing the decision to undertake metabolic bariatric surgery tourism. The results highlight the limited literature available in understanding the complex motivational insights; the scale of the problem in the current healthcare system; cost and long-term outcomes. A National Emergency Bariatric Surgery audit would allow generation of more robust data to explore further the issues of clinical relationships and networks and to guide policy making.© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of BJS Foundation Ltd. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

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