<p>Supplementary material.</p>

Both authors independently screened the literature against the a priori defined eligibility criteria. A thematic synthesis approach was used and results summarised qualitatively.</p> <p>Results</p><p>Forty-one papers were included in this review. Of the thirty-eight retrospective case series, thirty-three found a significant difference between the treatment of male and female patients.

Of the twenty-nine case series using a multivariate analysis, twenty-five studies found a significant difference in treatment between male and female patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p><p>The results of this review indicate that men and women are frequently treated differently by healthcare systems. During 2018–2023, five hundred and fifty-one papers were published which studied gender-based differences in opportunities given to healthcare professionals, but only forty-one studying the treatment given to patients.

This highlights an area of unmet research need.</p></div>