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Hospital aspergillosis deaths decrease from 2001-2011

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SAN DIEGO — In-hospital deaths and the length of stay among aspergillosis patients in the United States decreased from 2001-2011, recent data suggest.

“Although in-hospital mortality of aspergillosis markedly decreased from 2001 to 2011, there was no significant interaction between in-hospital mortality and age, sex, race, individual risk factors or risk groups across years,” Masako Mizusawa, MD, PhD, of Tufts University, said during a presentation. “This may suggest improvement in aspergillosis survival with voriconazole therapy.”

Masako Mizusawa

Using data from the Health Care Utilization and Cost Project Database, Mizusawa and colleagues conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of the incidence of mortality and burden of care associated with aspergillosis in the U.S. They examined two separate cohorts from 2001 (n = 892) and 2011 (n = 1420), each of which included all adult aspergillosis or pulmonary aspergillosis patients reported through the database for that year. Patients were then categorized as high or low risk, and further evaluated for age, sex, race and renal failure. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality, with changes in length of stay and hospital charges observed as well.

Decreases were observed in overall mortality during the later study period (18.8% vs. 7.7%; P < .0001), and persisted when limiting analysis to high- or low-risk patients. However, interaction analyses demonstrated an association between changes in mortality and certain risk groups, such as the immunocompromised. Median length of stay was also reduced by 2 days in 2011 (P < .0001), although the median number of hospital charges increased by $14,900 (P < .0001).

“Improvement in overall mortality might have been driven by markedly decrease mortality among immunocompromised hosts,” Mizusawa said. “Given the high proportion of lower risk or low-risk patients, further studies are needed to investigate aspergillosis in patients with no traditional risk factors or nonidentifiable risk factors.” – by Dave Muoio

Reference:

Mizusawa M, et al. Abstract M-376. Presented at: Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy; Sept. 17-21, 2015; San Diego.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.