Surgical treatment of myelomeningocele: year 2000 hospitalization, outcome, and cost analysis in the US.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To review cases of surgical repair for myelomeningocele (MMC) using a large inpatient database from the year 2000. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database with 7.45 million patient admissions for 2000 was retrospectively studied for the first 5 procedure diagnosis of MMC repair (ICD-9 CM procedure code 0352) and ages of less than 1 year. Eighty-eight patient stays were identified. Patient demographic data, length of stay, immediate disposition at the time of discharge, hospital information, and total cost for the hospitalization were determined. CONCLUSION: Myelomeningocele repair is mostly performed in large teaching institutions in small numbers. The majority gets to go home at discharge. It is surprising to note that only 35% also required VP shunt placement during the same hospitalization.