Abstract
Purpose :
There is little data on ophthalmic illnesses of the general population in recent years. In this study, we quantified the rates of hospitalization for ophthalmic disease and injury among all individuals in the United States, using the National Inpatient Sample – Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project(NIS-HCUP) database from 2016 to 2018.
Methods :
We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of recent data from the NIS-HCUP database (2016-2018). This database is the largest all-payer inpatient-care database and provides a stratified random sample covering 97% of all discharges from hospitals in the United States. Individuals with primary ophthalmic illnesses were identified by filtering for those with an ICD-10 code related to disease of the eye or adnexa. Data analysis was conducted using R software.
Results :
From 2016 to 2018, there were an estimated 23,423 ophthalmic inpatient admissions in the US. Most of these admissions were from non-traumatic disorders (77%). The most common diagnoses among the general population for ophthalmic diseases during this time period are: orbital cellulitis (9.6%), diplopia/visual disturbances (9.2%), orbital floor fracture (9.0%), optic neuritis (7.1%), and zoster ocular disease (5.5%). We compared our results with a previous study that quantified general population ophthalmic hospitalizations from 2001 to 2014.[1] Our results show that the rates of orbital cellulitis have decreased from 14.5% to 9.6% while the rates of optic neuritis have increased from 4.0% to 7.1%.
Conclusions :
This is the first published data on ophthalmologic disease and injury hospitalizations in the US during the time period of 2016 to 2018. Our study shows that rates of orbital cellulitis have decreased from previous years while rates of optic neuritis have increased. More research is needed to understand what drives these trends and changes in prevalences in diseases. This will be valuable when applying interventions to reduce the incidence and financial burden of the most common ophthalmic diseases.
1. Iftikhar M, Junaid N, Lemus M, Mallick ZN, Mina SA, Hannan U, Canner JK, Latif A, Shah SMA. Epidemiology of Primary Ophthalmic Inpatient Admissions in the United States. Am J Ophthalmol. 2018 Jan;185:101-109.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.