The prevalence of anaphylaxis, a serious life-threatening allergic reaction to a food or insect sting, appears to be on the rise but little is known about hospitalization trends among infants and toddlers.
In a study published yesterday in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, researchers seeking to identify the trends and predictors of hospitalization for anaphylaxis of this group used the nationally representative National Inpatient Sample (NIS), from 2006 to 2015 to perform an analysis of trends in US hospitalizations for anaphylaxis among infants and toddlers (<3 years) and older children (3-18 years).
They found that among infants and toddlers, there was no significant change in anaphylaxis hospitalizations during the 10-year study period. When hospitalizations for anaphylaxis did occur the patient was more likely to be male with private insurance from a family in the highest income quartile that was suffering from chronic pulmonary disease (like asthma).
In contrast, anaphylaxis hospitalizations among older children (3-18 years) rose significantly during the study.
The researchers concluded that future research focus on the trends in disease prevalence and health care utilization in the understudied population of infants and toddlers.
