Hospitalization and case fatality for pulmonary embolism in the twin cities: 1979-1984.

To better characterize the morbidity from pulmonary embolism, we examined hospital discharge data for all acute care facilities (except for the Veterans Administration Medical Center) in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in each year from 1979 to 1984 for persons aged 30 to 74 years. For each person in whom the discharge diagnoses included pulmonary embolism, the age, sex, year of admission, and vital status at discharge were recorded. Annual age-sex-specific and age-adjusted sex-specific hospitalization rates were calculated. Similar analyses were undertaken for case fatality. With the exception of men younger than 55 years of age, all groups experienced significant decline in the pulmonary embolism discharge rate. No significant temporal changes were observed in any of the case fatality rates. These data suggest that changes in pulmonary embolism mortality in the United States from 1979 to 1984 may reflect declining occurrence of the disease and are likely not the result of changes in case fatality. Further studies in this area are needed.