Long-Term Technology Assessment: Mortality, Hospitalization, and Work Loss Due to Peptic Ulcer and Gastritis/Duodenitis in the Federal Republic of Germany

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Abstract
Once the effects of short-term data analysis of new medical technology appear clear, additional or long-term analyses are infrequently performed on subsequent information. This often leads to incomplete understanding of the technology's full medical, social, and economic effects. Available data for the Federal Republic of Germany on mortality, hospitalization, and work loss due to gastric and duodenal ulcer and gastritis/duodenitis allowed long-term analysis of direct and indirect impacts on the population from 1975 through 1984. Mortality rates declined for all ages (ρ ≤ 0.01) except for those age 75 and older, and nearly equally for all study diagnoses. Hospital discharge rates for all diagnoses rose slowly and steadily, while those for persons diagnosed with gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer or gastritis/duodenitis declined sharply (ρ = 0.04). Declines of hospital discharges were greater for men than for women. The ongoing decline in rates of mortality and hospital discharges increased after 1977. Rates of work loss per 10,000 population-at-risk for study diagnoses were either stable or increasing until 1979, after which there was a marked decline (ρ = 0.03 for gastric ulcer, ρ = 0.02 for duodenal ulcer, ρ = 0.008 for gastritis/duodenitis). Work loss due to study diseases declined as a percentage of work loss for all diseases during the later study years. Only by examining many years' data could the accelerating declines be discerned, not only for mortality and hospitalizations, which have been examined before, but also for work loss, an infrequently analyzed effect of disease.