WEDNESDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- Hospitalizations for adults with congenital heart disease have more than doubled between the years 1998 and 2005 in the United States, with even greater increases in costs, according to a study in the July 28 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Alexander R. Opotowsky, M.D., and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia examined the number of hospitalized congenital heart disease cases in the United States using data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample.
The researchers found that the number of hospitalizations doubled from 35,992 in 1998 to 72,656 in 2005 and increased for both simple and complex diagnoses. There was also a 127 percent increase in mean hospital charges per hospitalization from $19,186 to $43,496, and a 357 percent increase in total national charges for these hospitalizations from $691 million to $3.16 billion.
"The number of hospital admissions for congenital heart disease in the U.S. more than doubled between 1998 and 2005," Opotowsky and colleagues conclude. "Hospital charges attributable to these admissions have grown even more dramatically."
Abstract
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