Authors: Amnon Sonnenberg
Publish Date: 2009/06/11
Volume: 54, Issue: 8, Pages: 1680-1685
Abstract
HCUP data from 1997 to 2006 were stratified by categories pertaining to patient demographics such as age sex race income residence in metropolitan area and region of the United States as well as categories pertaining to hospital characteristics such teaching status location and bed size The distributions of inpatients among different categories were compared between achalasia and all other diagnoses using odds ratios and their 95 confidence intervals for comparisonThe annual hospitalization rates of achalasia revealed a clearcut agedependent rise between the youngest age group less than 18 years old 025/100000 and the oldest age group over 85 years old 3735/100000 Between 1997 and 2007 the rates of hospitalization remained largely unchanged for all age groups alike Achalasia was equally distributed among men and women and among various ethnic groups Compared with other diagnoses achalasia was more frequent among hospitalized patients from zip codes associated with a higher average income 126 123–129 living in metropolitan areas 112 109–115 and living in the northeast region of the United States 127 125–130 Achalasia patients were mostly seen in large hospitals 122 119–126 teaching hospitals 173 170–176 and hospitals located in metropolitan areas 115 114–115
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