Hospitalization and mortality for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): an Italian population-based study

Objective: Patients with acute exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have a significant mortality and morbidity. Previous studies have identified a number of independent prognostic factors. However, information on hospital admission databases is limited and data regarding short-term prognosis of these patients in Italian hospitals are lacking. Thus, we performed an epidemiological study on hospital admission for COPD acute exacerbation in Italy.

Patients and methods: Patients were identified using clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. Information was collected on baseline characteristics, vital status at discharge, duration of hospitalization, and up to five secondary discharge diagnoses. Comorbidity was evaluated using the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI).

Results: During the observation period (2013-2014), 170,684 patients with COPD acute exacerbation were hospitalized. Mean length of hospitalization (LOH) was 9.95±8.69 days and mean in-hospital mortality was 5.30%. These data correspond to the 4.1% of all hospitalizations and to the 2.8% of all the days of hospitalization in Italy during the study period. In-hospital mortality and LOH varied among different regions (from 3.13 to 7.59% and from 8.22 to 11.28 days respectively). Old age, male gender, low discharge volume, previous hospitalization for COPD exacerbation and CCI resulted as significantly associated with higher in-hospital mortality.

Conclusions: Hospitalization for COPD exacerbation is extremely frequent even in contemporary Italian population. COPD exacerbation is clinically demanding with a not negligible short-term mortality rate and a mean LOH approaching 10 days. These latter findings were quite variable in different regions but should be further analyzed to set up appropriate health-care policies on COPD patients.

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