National Mortality in Otorhinolaryngology

Abstract

Background: National mortality in otolaryngology has not been analyzed in our population since 1985, when Kirschbaum and Aracena demonstrated that a strange body in the airway was the most frequent reason of death. Aim: To describe the tendency of mortality rate due to otorhinolaryngologic (ORL) causes, and to compare the data with the results of previous studies. Methods: Descriptive study of mortality rate by means of a retrospective review of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) demographic annals between 1991 and 2003, based on the CIE IX and CIE X international classification of diseases. Results: An arithmetic average of mortality due to ORL causes of 7.34 per 100000 inhabitants, decreasing from 10.12 per 100000 in 1991, to 4.81 per 100000 in 1999, which means a reduction of 53%. This is mainly explained by the reduction in the mortality rate due to choking caused by a foreign object in the airway, which also has the highest ORL mortality rate, since other pathologies, mainly malignant tumors of diverse location, have a reduced mortality rate. Discussion: Similarly to previous studies, choking caused by a foreign object in the airway is still the main mortality cause in ORL, followed by laryngeal cancer, which keeps affecting predominantly males. There was no significant variation in the rate of mortality caused by malignant pathology in theyears studied, nor in comparison with the study by Kirschbaum and Aracena in 1985. It stands out an important decrease in mortality rate due to supurative otitis media, which could be explained by the population having a better access to medical treatment.