Need for comparative effectiveness research to address clinical questions in hematology (pages 627–628)

摘要

The study by Danese et al. in this month’s issue of thenAmerican Journal of Hematology, demonstrates how importantnfindings can be obtained from skillful analysis of existingndata [1]. Danese et al. used data from the Nationwide InpatientnSample to describe the risks of dying for patients withnimmune thrombocytopenic (ITP) who are admitted to thenhospital, and the associated costs of their hospitalizations.nAlthough ITP is often managed in an outpatient setting, whennpatients are sick enough to require hospitalization, the agespecificnmortality rates exceed the pooled rates for all othernhospitalizations. The authors estimated that from 2003 ton2006 there were more than 127,000 hospitalizations for ITPnwith the majority paid for by Medicare. The average length ofnstay was 6.4 days and the in-hospital mortality was 3.8%nacross all ages and ITP-related diagnoses