Figure 5Hospitalization age and lengths in higher (��10000 NT dollar/day) and lower cost AMI patients from selleck products 1999 to 2008. Panel (a) shows the average age from higher and lower AMI hospitalization cost. Panel (b) shows the average hospitalization lengths …Figure 6The correlation of hospital length and total cost or daily cost in AMI patients. The hospital length was linearly correlated with total cost (a) and inversely correlated with daily cost (b).4. DiscussionIn this study, through the reliable nationwide population-based dataset, which almost covers entire population in Taiwan, we demonstrated that the hospitalization percentages of AMI and STEMI were declined from 1999 to 2008. In this period, the total admission number was increased, but the number of total AMI or STEMI admission was decreased.

Therefore, both factors contribute to the changes of AMI and STEMI admission percentage. The improvement would be caused by more aggressive risk factors control from medical systems and education on AMI prevention from the community and individual [1, 2]. However, this trend was more significant in male gender, which results in the near similar hospitalization percentages of AMI and STEMI between male and female in 2007~2008. This result may be caused by the gender differences because the hospitalization percentages of AMI and STEMI were lower in female than in male. Moreover, typical symptoms of coronary artery diseases or more attention and aggressive prevention in male gender may potentially result in the decline in MI or STEMI.

In contrast, NSTEMI was not significantly changed both in male and female, which indicated different pathophysiology between STEMI and NSTEMI. In this study, the patient age of MI with or without ST elevation was significantly increased over the 10-year period. Similar to those in the previous studies, the patient age was older in female than in male, Anacetrapib which implies the rather normal coronary artery and healthy life pattern in female than in male with the similar age. The decrease of AMI percentage of hospitalization and patient ages indicates that the improvement in treating coronary artery disease during this period. In contrast, the age of MI was reported to be similar within the 10-year period in USA [1].In this study, for the first time, we evaluated the hospitalization cost of AMI over the 10-year period. Surprisingly, similar hospitalization cost over the 10-year period for treating MI was observed. Since the budget for health insurance in Taiwan was increased and mild inflation was demonstrated in this period, the similar hospitalization cost for treating MI actually means that the medical fare for MI treatment was decreased in this period.