Method: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) for the years 2009 and 2010 was used. NIS is the largest all-payer hospital discharge database that is a part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. All hospitalizations that underwent a radical excision of cervical lymph nodes procedure were selected for analysis. Occurrence of an ADE during hospitalization was identified by using external cause of injury codes. Drugs causing ADEs, patient attributes, and disposition status following hospitalization were examined.
Result: During the study period a total of 48,413 hospitalizations underwent radical excision of cervical lymph node procedure. The average age of hospitalizations was 59 years. Close to 64% were males. About 90% of all hospitalizations occurred on an elective basis. Following hospitalization, 72.6% were discharged routinely and 18% were transferred to home health care. A total of 285 patients died in hospitals. Adverse drug events were reported in 1.85% of hospitalizations having radical excision of cervical lymph nodes. The frequently occurring ADE’s included those caused by use of hormones and synthetic substitutes (0.42%), anti-infective agents (0.31%), analgesics/antipyretics/antirheumatics (0.28%), unspecified drugs and medicinal substances (0.16%), antiobiotics (0.14%), central nervous system depressants and anesthetics (0.13%), and water/ mineral/uric acid metabolism drugs (0.11%).
Conclusion: Adverse drug events occur in close to 2% of those that underwent radical excision of cervical lymph node procedures. Nationally representative estimates of frequently occurring adverse drug events are presented.