Original Articles: Systemic Allergic DisordersIncreasing anaphylaxis hospitalizations in the first 2 decades of life: New York State, 1990–2006
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Anaphylaxis is a potentially life-threatening allergic condition that often results in hospital and/or emergency department admissions. Although an epidemic of asthma manifested with significant increases in hospitalization rates in several countries1, 2 toward the end of the 20th century, less is known about trends in other allergic conditions such as anaphylaxis. Allergic disorders are thought to have increased in civilized countries in part because of conditions that favor the generation of T
General Aspects
There were 1,972 hospitalizations with a principal diagnosis of anaphylaxis for patients younger than 20 years during the study period (Table 1). The next most common allergic disease admission category was urticaria, followed by angioedema. The median age for anaphylaxis was 11 years, which was older than the mean age for the other allergic disease groups. The overall distribution of admission age in the anaphylaxis groups showed peaks in the very young and in teens (Fig 1). A diagnosis of
DISCUSSION
This study demonstrates that severe anaphylaxis in younger people is increasing in a populous state in the United States. This pattern of increasing rates of anaphylaxis is similar to that reported in Australia from 1994 through 20058 and in the United Kingdom from 1990 through 2004.9 In the Australian report, anaphylaxis admission rates were highest for the youngest age category, and food anaphylaxis admissions in younger people increased at a greater rate than anaphylaxis not related to food.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Shaili N. Shah and Farzana Nurruzzaman were supported by the New York Medical College intramural medical student preceptorship program. We are grateful for the assistance of Dr Ariel D. Teitel.
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Disclosures: Authors have nothing to disclose.