Trends in Sickle Cell Disease-related Priapism in U.S. Children's Hospitals

OBJECTIVE: To define rates of priapism diagnosis and inpatient admission among males with sickle cell disease (SCD). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the Pediatric Health Information System database for males aged RESULTS: We identified 17,186 males who were admitted 137,710 times during the study period. Of these, 362 (2.1%) were diagnosed with priapism on 748 admissions. There was a significant decrease in the number of priapism admissions among patients with SCD over time (0.81% in 2004 to 0.44% in 2012, P  <  .001). The number of patients diagnosed with SCD-related priapism varied over time without a statistically significant trend (2.3% in 2004, 2.69% in 2008, 1.01% in 2012, P  =  .34). Rates of priapism admissions (0-4.4%) varied widely between hospitals. Older patient age was associated with an increased likelihood of a priapism admission in the multivariate logistic regression model after adjusting for treatment year, hospital region, and for hospital-level clustering of similar patients. CONCLUSION: From 2004 to 2012, the number of admissions for SCD-related priapism declined whereas the number of individual patients diagnosed with SCD-related priapism did not. Rates of priapism-related admissions in males with SCD vary widely among PHIS hospitals. Abstract source Full text Full text (PMC)