News for Immediate Release
August 8, 2024
Harrisburg – PHC4 released a new research brief about childhood cancer today, providing insight into hospitalization rates among children in Pennsylvania with cancer. Reported are trends for calendar years 2016 through 2023, with additional analysis and focus on hospitalizations from 2021 through 2023.
This research brief examines inpatient hospitalizations for Pennsylvania children, (those under 18 years of age) who were admitted to a Pennsylvania general acute care hospital with a diagnosis of cancer. The analysis includes cases where cancer was the principal reason for the admission, as well as cases where the patient was admitted for another reason but also had a diagnosis of cancer.
The report shows that between 2016 through 2023, annual inpatient hospitalizations for Pennsylvania children with a diagnosis of cancer ranged from a low of 2,555 hospitalizations, in 2022, to a high of 3,051 hospitalizations, in 2019. Other indicators, like types of cancer, show that 81.3% of the total hospitalizations reported for childhood cancer included only one type of cancer. The table below gives further details into types of cancer and length of stay, as well as cases with multiple types of cancer for hospitalizations from 2021 through 2023.
Dr. Jane Keck, Director of Health Policy Research at PHC4, believes this work is significant because it provides important information about the impact of cancer on this sensitive age group. “Monitoring the number of cancer-related hospitalizations for children in PA is vital for raising awareness on how children, our greatest asset, and their families are affected by this terrible disease,” stated Dr. Keck. “This brief serves as an opportunity to examine change over time and falls in line with PHC4’s core principle of reporting timely and transparent information,” added Keck. This brief is being released just prior to September’s National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
PHC4 is an independent council formed under Pennsylvania statute (Act 89 of 1986, as amended by Act 15 of 2020) in order to address rapidly growing health care costs. PHC4 continues to produce comparative information about the most efficient and effective health care to individual consumers and group purchasers of health services. In addition, PHC4 produces information used to identify opportunities to contain costs and improve the quality of care delivered.
For more information, visit phc4.org or view the research brief here.
Media contact:
Barry D. Buckingham
Executive Director, PHC4
[email protected]
