MedWire News: Findings published in a US report show that costs, doctor visits, prescription costs and hospitalisations associated with digestive diseases have risen significantly in recent years.
"This report gives us the best recent update on the toll digestive diseases exact on patients and society – and there are both positive and negative trends," said lead author Dr James Everhart, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Washington, DC.
In their review of statistics from various sources, Dr Everhart and team found that annual doctor visits due to digestive, liver and pancreatic diseases increased by more than 50% between 2000 and 2004, from 45 million to 100 million visits.
Furthermore, hospitalisations for these disorders exceeded 13 million in 2004, up from around 9 million in 2002.
Direct costs, such as those for hospital services, physician services, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, nursing home care and home healthcare, due to these conditions also increased from $85 billion (€65.7 billion) in 1998 to $97 billion (€75 billion) in 2004.
Indirect costs, such as lost earnings and reduced production, more than doubled between 1998 and 2004, from $20 billion (€15.4 billion) to $44 billion (€34 billion).
The three most costly digestive diseases in both direct and indirect costs were digestive cancers, liver disease and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.
Encouragingly, deaths related to digestive diseases gradually declined between 1979 and 2004, which is largely attributable to a decrease in deaths due to colorectal cancer, mainly from increased screening rates.
However, Dr Everhart explained: "While deaths from digestive diseases have gradually declined over the last 25 years, they still result in more than 230,000 deaths per year.”
He added: “Some diseases stand out in significance. For example, outpatient visits and hospitalisations for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease increased several fold in the last 15 years with a corresponding increase in the incidence of its complication of esophageal cancer."
Commenting on the findings, Robert Sandler, director of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute, said: “This report quantifies the substantial and growing burden of digestive diseases on patients and our healthcare system.
“There is a tremendous need for more research into the causes, diagnosis and treatment of digestive diseases."
MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009
Free full report
