Epidemiology of Anaphylactic Shock and its Related Mortality in Hospital Patients in Taiwan: A Nationwide Population-Based Study

Anaphylactic shock is potentially life-threatening. However, there is a paucity of data about its incidence and associated mortality, particularly in Asian populations. We aimed to investigate the epidemiology of anaphylactic shock and its related mortality after the hospitalization of patients in the general population of Taiwan. The National Health Insurance Research Database was used to identify patients with anaphylactic shock and estimate its incidence for inpatients sampled from 2005 to 2012. The pattern of anaphylactic shock and anaphylactic shock-related mortality rate was also examined. Of 22,080,199 patients who were admitted to hospitals from 2005 to 2012, there were 2,289 incident cases of anaphylactic shock and 2,219 people were included. Incidence of hospitalizations due to anaphylactic shock ranged from 12.71 to 13.23 per million of the population between 2005 and 2012. The incidence of anaphylactic shock in our study was substantially lower than other western countries, including the United States. There were 24 deaths due to drug-induced anaphylactic shock among the hospitalizations; overall mortality rate was 1.08%. Eighteen (0.81%) patients died within 30 days; 22 (0.99%) died within 2 months following the anaphylactic shock. The highest incidence occurred in patients aged 70-79 years. Conversely, food-induced anaphylactic shock was not influenced by age. In conclusion, drug-induced anaphylactic shock was a major cause of death due to anaphylactic shock in hospitalized patients. Most cases of anaphylactic shock occurred in the older population, and the mortality rate was lower in females than in males, though the difference was not significant.