What are the most common surgeries done in the EU?

At some point or another in our lives, we may undergo a procedure in hospital. But when it comes to the broad spectrum of medical conditions, there are a few surgeries that occur more than others in European hospitals.

Cataract surgery, the extraction of the lens from an eye, is the most common of the surgical operations and procedures performed in the EU.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, it was conducted 4.73 million times in 2022 across EU countries.

In 16 of the EU countries, cataract surgery was performed over 1,000 times per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022.

While this procedure was the most common in France, it was performed the least number of times in Romania, with 1,493 operations and less than 500 operations per 100,000 inhabitants respectively.

Caesarean sections

Another common procedure was the caesarean section, the delivery of one or more babies through an incision in a mother’s abdomen and uterus.

In 2022, this procedure was performed at least 1.10 million times in the EU, according to Eurostat.

This procedure is most common in Cyprus and Romania, with 681.6 and 446.9 caesarean sections performed per 100 000 inhabitants, respectively.

In contrast, it is less frequent in Finland with 157.3 caesareans performed per 100,000 inhabitants.

Breast conserving surgery and other common operations

The most common procedures include cholecystectomies (surgery to remove the gallbladder), knee replacement, appendectomies (the removal of an infected appendix), hysterectomies (the removal of all or part of the uterus) and excisions of mammary glands.

The frequency of cholecystectomies and the frequency of appendectomies varied less between the EU countries than did most other procedures.

In contrast, the frequency of partial excisions of mammary glands varied quite considerably between the EU countries in 2022.

In Belgium, this procedure was performed 141.4 times per 100 000 inhabitants, while in Poland it was performed 14.2 times per 100 000 inhabitants.

Increasing surgical operations and procedures

Relative to population size, the frequency of laparoscopic hysterectomies, a vaginal hysterectomy performed with the aid of a laparoscope, a thin, flexible tube containing a video camera, increased in almost all EU countries.

The frequency of laparoscopic repair of inguinal hernia, cataract surgeries and total knee replacement also increased in almost all EU countries for which data are available.

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Decreasing surgical operations and procedures

On the opposite, hysterectomies and appendectomies have become less common in recent years, despite the relatively fast growth in their performance using laparoscopic techniques.

Between 2012 and 2022, the frequency of caesarean sections decreased among 17 of the 25 EU countries for which data is available.

In nearly all EU countries, there has been a fall in recent years in the use of in-patient procedures for cataract surgery.