Hospital incidence and annual rates of hospitalization of venous thromboembolic disease in France and in the USA

Abstract

Objective: To describe the hospital incidence and the annual rates of hospitalization of venous thromboembolic diseases (VTE), deep venous thrombosis (TVP) and pulmonary embolism (EP) among adult patient hospitalized in French and US hospitals. Methods: Statistics are issued from the national forwarded and validated by health establishments with admissions in medicine, surgery, obstetrics and odontology. The comparison was conducted with the data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and issued from the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS). Results: The results cover all hospital stays in the USA and in France during the study period. In the United State, the hospital incidence of VTE was 1.4 %, of DVT 0.9 % and of EP 0.7 %. In France, they were 1.0 %, 0.6 % and 0.5 %. The overall annual hospitalization rates were respectively 274, 179 and 139 per 100000 in France and 239, 146 and 121 per 100000 population in the US. In both countries, and in similar proportions, the annual rate of hospitalization for VTE increases with age but only slightly differ by gender. Conclusion: VTE alone makes up nearly one percent of all hospital stays and the high level of hospitalization rates over 200 for 100 000 inhabitants is an alarming situation that should make us question the quality of prevention implemented and/or its effectiveness. VTE prevention policies must be strengthened in hospitals for the sake of patients and healthcare savings alike. It would be easy to monitor results from the simple indicators developed in this paper that provide a benchmark for evaluating future improvements.