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PURPOSE: Neutropenia and subsequent infections are life-threatening treatment-related toxicities of chemotherapy. Among patients with cancer, hospitalizations related to neutropenic complications result in substantial medical costs, morbidity, and mortality. Previous estimates for the cost of cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations are based on older and limited data. This study provides nationally representative estimates of the cost of cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations. METHODS: We examined data from the 2012 National Inpatient Sample and Kids' Inpatient Database. Hospitalizations for cancer-related neutropenia were defined as those with a primary or secondary diagnosis of cancer and a diagnosis of neutropenia or a fever of unknown origin. We examined characteristics of cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations among children (age < 18 years) and adults (age ≥ 18 years). Adjusted predicted margins were used to estimate length of stay and cost per stay. RESULTS: There were 91, 560 and 16, 859 cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations among adults and children, respectively. Total cost of cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations was 2. 3 billion for adults and 439 million for children. Cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations accounted for 5. 2% of all cancer-related hospitalizations and 8. 3% of all cancer-related hospitalization costs. For adults, the mean length of stay for cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations was 9. 6 days, with a mean hospital cost of 24, 770 per stay. For children, the mean length of stay for cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations was 8. 5 days, with a mean hospital cost of 26, 000 per stay. CONCLUSION: We found the costs of cancer-related neutropenia hospitalizations to be substantially high. Efforts to prevent and minimize neutropenia-related complications among patients with cancer may decrease hospitalizations and associated costs.
Tai et al. (Mon,) studied this question.