Treatment of Hirschsprung's Disease in Germany: Analysis of National Hospital Discharge Data From 2016 to 2022

Abstract

BackgroundHirschsprung's disease (HD) is a rare and complex malformation. The corrective operation is challenging and schedulable. The complete care situation for the corrective surgery for HD in Germany is uninvestigated. MethodsFor the years 2016–2022, the microdata of the diagnosis-related groups (DRG) -statistics provided by the Research Data Center of the German Federal Statistical Office were accessed. All hospital stays for corrective surgery of HD in patients aged 0–17 were analyzed for patient's comorbidities, treatment characteristics and hospital structures. The occurrence of severe early postoperative complications during the hospital stay were documented. ResultsThe care structure for HD in Germany is decentralized with 109 hospitals performing 1199 corrective surgeries in 7 years. 75% of the participating hospitals performed three or less cases per year and 55 participating hospitals did not perform corrective surgery for HD each year. Early postoperative complications were common with at least one severe early complication in 18.6% of the cases. With an overall low case load per hospital, a volume outcome relationship cannot be established within Germany. Compared to international high volume centers the quality of outcomes for some of the investigated parameters was reduced. Despite the establishing of centers of expertise by the European reference network ERNICA for the treatment of HD no trend towards centralization occurred in Germany. ConclusionsThe corrective surgery for HD in Germany is decentralized and results in an overall high rate of early complications. The comparison with international studies from high-volume centers indicates potential for improvement for the corrective surgery of HD. Centralization remains essential for the improvement of care for patients with HD.