A study of hospital discharges for venous thromboembolism in the south of Spain. An analysis of 19,170 cases from a regional database from 1998 to 2001

BACKGROUND: Our objective was to learn about the incidence of hospitalization for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the public health care system in Andalusia and to define the profile of the patients, with special reference to the Department of Internal Medicine. METHODS: We analyzed the discharged data set of 32 hospitals in the Andalusian Health Care Service between 1998 and 2001, identifying the cases in whom the diagnosis was VTE. The age, sex, length of stay, outcome, number of diagnoses, diagnosis-related group (DRG), and coded procedures were studied. RESULTS: During the period studied, there were 2,228,894 discharges, 19,170 of which involved VTE. In 8494 of these, VTE was the cause of the admission. Some 3961 patients (46.6%) were admitted for pulmonary embolism (PE); 45% were discharged from internal medicine, 41% from pneumology, and 14% from other departments. The average patient age was 65, the length of stay 13.8 days, and the global in-hospital mortality rate 13%. Some 4533 cases (53.4%) were admitted due to deep vein thrombosis (DVT): 38.5% to internal medicine, 21.30% to general surgery, 12.35% to angiology, and the remainder to other departments. The length of stay was 10.6 days with an in-hospital mortality rate of 2.20%. In 7721 cases, VTE was the secondary diagnosis (after excluding 2955 cases of superficial thrombophlebitis of the upper limbs); 74% was associated with a medical DRG. CONCLUSIONS: VTE is a frequent pathology in our hospitals. It shows a great variability in clinical practice although there are differences between patients treated by different specialists. VTE as secondary diagnosis was more frequent in medical inpatients.