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Background: Medical tourism, foreign travel for the purpose of seeking medical treatment, is an important new development in healthcare. Medical tourism is a world-wide, multibillion dollar phenomenon that is expected to grow substantially in the next 5-10 years. To provide a foundation for future investigations, a systematic review was conducted to identify and evaluate current data on medical tourism and associated health impacts. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE and Medline databases and the World Wide Web were searched to identify studies of medical tourism from 1990-2009 containing data. Results: 44 studies were identified. 75% (n = 33) were reports oncomplications associated with medical tourism for: commercial organ transplantation (n = 30), cosmetic surgery (n = 1), dental care (n = 1), and fertility treatments (n = -1). There were 9 (20%) surveys of travelers and/or medical tourism providers, and 2 (4%) business studies. Methodologies used were primarily retrospective record reviews (75%) and interview surveys (23%). Studies of commercial organ transplantation reviewed 2506 cases, primarily kidney (92%) and liver (8%) transplants. China and India were the most frequent transplant destinations. Studies’ results suggest an apparent increase in “transplant tourism” from 1990-2009, and higher incidence of post-operative tissue rejection and severe infectious complications among transplant tourists compared to other transplant patients. These studies are limited by lack of denominator data for transplant tourism, exclusive focus on complications, survivorship bias, and the possibility that transplant touristsmay not be representative of all medical tourists. Business studies calculate widely varying estimates of the frequency of medical tourism, ranging from 60,000- 750,000 medical travelers annually. These studies are limited by variability in the definitions and methodologies used to study medical tourism. Survey studies are limited by little or no data on treatment(s) received, reasons for seeking foreign healthcare, or treatment outcomes. Conclusion: Current epidemiological data on medical tourism are limited. Basic questions such as the prevalence of medical tourism and associated complication rates have not been established. Important directions for future research include: developing consistent definitions, and conducting prospective studies of demographics, motivations, treatment outcomes, and cost benefits to better understand the healthcare implications of medical tourism. Abstracts for SupplementInternational Journal of Infectious DiseasesVol. 14Preview Full-Text PDF Open Archive
Balaban et al. (Mon,) studied this question.