Metrics details. Acute otitis media AOM is the most common cause of pediatric medical visits and antibiotic prescriptions worldwide, but its current impact on the US healthcare system is not clear. The study also examined the costs associated with index AOM events during the two most recent years for which data were available — Incidence rates of healthcare utilization related to the index AOM episode were calculated using the annual number of enrolled person-years as the denominator and the number of individuals with AOM as the numerator.
AOM-associated costs were calculated as the mean payment per episode during the 2 years from to The overall annual rate of AOM-related healthcare utilization was The rate of AOM-related healthcare utilization per person-years was highest in the youngest children and declined with age More effective preventive measures such as new vaccines are needed to reduce the burden of AOM.
Peer Review reports. This makes AOM the most common pediatric infectious disease and most common reason for medical visits, antibiotic prescriptions, and hearing impairment in children [ 2 ]. Streptococcus pneumoniae , non-typable Haemophilus influenzae , and Moraxella catarrhalis are the most common causes of AOM [ 3 ].
Over the last several decades, a variety of vaccines have been introduced in the US to control S. Vaccines against non-typeable H.
PCV7 greatly reduced the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease and S. Further data on the real burden of AOM and its impact on the healthcare system are needed to assess the impact of recent interventions, especially PCV13, on AOM and to inform the development and use of new vaccines and other preventive measures. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate changes in the incidence of AOM from , just before PCV13 was introduced, to , the most recent year for which data were available, based on US insurance records in the Truven MarketScan database.
