Trends in Healthcare Utilization and Treatments of Infantile Hemangioma in the United States: Analysis of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) 2009-2019.
AI interpretation is pending for this paper.
Open original publication →What the AI sees
Not AI summarized yet.
Research significance
Pending deeper interpretation.
Source abstract
BACKGROUND: Recent data demonstrate increased incidence of Infantile hemangioma (IH) over the past several decades. However, little is known about current trends in healthcare utilization and medication prescribing in patients with IH in the United States (US), particularly since the discovery and uptake of beta-blockers as standard of care treatment. METHODS: We examined US ambulatory visits in infants (age ≤ 1 years) with any hemangioma (International Classification of Diseases [ICD] 9th Revision codes 228.00, 228.01, or 228.09 in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey [NAMCS] 2009-2015, and ICD 10th Revision code D18.0 in the NAMCS 2016-2019). We further trended the prescription of topical and systemic IH treatments during this period. RESULTS: Years of visit were bundled into 5-year bins to minimize standard errors for the trend tests. The number of visits related to IH significantly increased from 878,725 (95% CI: 439,376-1,318,074) in 2009-2013 to 1,431,913 (95% CI: 940,036-1,923,790, p = 0.022) in 2014-2019. The number of visits with resulting timolol prescription concurrently significantly increased from 16,279 (95% CI: 0-40,600) to 424,845 (95% CI: 380,786-468,903, p < 0.001), while the increase in the number of propranolol prescriptions was nonsignificant (from 162,323 [95% CI: 0-331,537] to 208,139 [95% CI: 0-558,709], p = 0.652). CONCLUSIONS: The US healthcare utilization for IH has been on the rise between 2009 and 2019, likely owing to increased awareness, earlier diagnosis, and enhanced therapies. While topical beta-blocker prescriptions have significantly increased during that period of time, systemic beta-blocker prescription rates have not.