Original scientific articleSmall Bowel Obstruction: A Population-Based Appraisal
Section snippets
Data source
Hospitalization data were obtained from California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD),7 in Sacramento, CA, which collects annual data from all inpatients discharged from acute care hospitals licensed by the state of California. Each discharge abstract in the Patient Discharge Database (PDD) contains a unique record linkage number (eg, encrypted social security number), demographic data (eg, age, gender, race or ethnicity, type of insurance, ZIP code of residence),
Patient demographics
There were 45,770 patients with a diagnosis of bowel obstruction admitted to hospitals in the state of California in 1997. Based on the exclusion criteria of a scheduled admission and presence of a large bowel resection or anastomosis, 32,583 patients were identified for additional analysis as outlined in Figure 1. All of these admissions were unscheduled, and 71% were admitted through the emergency room. The average age was 63 years and 43% had no medical comorbidities, as measured by the
Discussion
Small bowel obstruction, and in particular, SBO secondary to adhesions formed after earlier abdominal operation, presents a problem of staggering magnitude in developed countries. In this study, during the year 1997 in the state of California, SBO accounted for 32,583 unscheduled admissions, and approximately 85% were secondary to adhesions. To put this number in perspective, during 1997, there were 9,675 colon resections for colon cancer.7 In a large, multiinstitutional, retrospective cohort
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Competing Interests Declared: None.
Grant support: UCLA Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (McGory).