The health and economic burden of rare endocrine disease: Often ignored, always important.

Abstract

Background: Rare endocrine diseases (RED) often pose chronic and life-threatening challenges, yet their economic costs and societal impact remains have not been precisely quantified.

Methods: We obtained patient data from the 2018 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) and the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD), identifying RED patients through International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes. The difference of economic burden between RED patients and the control group, including hospital length of stay, hospitalisation costs, and readmission rates, was assessed using chi-square tests.

Results: We extracted 638 083 (2.98%) RED-related records from the NIS database. Compared to patients with common conditions, RED patients showed an exceedingly high burden of disease, including significantly extended hospital stays (P < 0.05), elevated total charges (P < 0.05), and heightened mortality rates (P < 0.05). They also had a substantially increased 30-day all-cause readmission rate based on the NRD database (P < 0.05). Although the different subgroups of RED patients had varying patterns of health care utilisation and economic burdens, they all surpassed those of patients with common conditions.

Conclusions: There is a need for novel strategies aimed at mitigating the substantial RED-related burdens borne by individuals, families, and society in general, as well as funding for research and clinical trials.