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Demographic disparities of children presenting with symptomatic Meckel’s diverticulum in children’s hospitals

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Abstract

Purpose

Most of the literature about Meckel’s diverticulum (MD) consists of single institutional longitudinal case series. We queried the pediatric hospital information system (PHIS) database to obtain information about the epidemiology of MD from a large number of children at geographically diverse locations.

Methods

After IRB approval, the PHIS database was queried over a 9-year period for de-identified patients with both ICD-9 diagnoses of MD and a procedure code for Meckel’s diverticulectomy. Data from five hospitals were excluded due to incomplete information.

Results

4,338,396 were children admitted during the study interval; 945 had a symptomatic MD. The incidence decreased with age: 56.4 % were under 5 years old, 26.8 % were between the ages of 6–12 years, and 16.8 % were older than 12 years. 74 % were male, which was significantly higher than the PHIS population (53.8 % male, P < 0.0001). Caucasians are over-represented in the symptomatic MD group (63.4 %) compared to the rest of the PHIS population (48.1 %, P < 0.0001).

Conclusions

According to the PHIS data, there appears to be significant gender and race influence on symptomatic MD. Males present more commonly, as do non-Hispanic White patients, while it is less common among non-Hispanic Black patients.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, The Children’s Mercy Hospital, 2401 Gillham Road, Kansas City, MO, 64108, USA

    Hanna Alemayehu, Amita A. Desai, Shawn D. St. Peter & Charles L. Snyder

  2. Children’s Hospital Association, Overland Park, KS, USA

    Matt Hall

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  1. Hanna Alemayehu
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  2. Matt Hall
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  3. Amita A. Desai
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  4. Shawn D. St. Peter
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  5. Charles L. Snyder
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Correspondence to Charles L. Snyder.

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Alemayehu, H., Hall, M., Desai, A.A. et al. Demographic disparities of children presenting with symptomatic Meckel’s diverticulum in children’s hospitals. Pediatr Surg Int 30, 649–653 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00383-014-3513-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00383-014-3513-y

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