Vol.98 No.6 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 98 No. 6 June 2005
One Year Analysis of Emergency Cases
Treated at the Otolaryngological Clinic
Taro Inagaki, Atsushi Kawano, Yasuo Ogawa, Tomoyuki Yoshida,
Masaaki Shimizu, Mari Nakamura, Nobutoshi Funato and Mamoru Suzuki
(Tokyo Medical University)
From July 2002 to June 2003, 3,223 emergency patients (EP) with otolaryngology disease visited the emergency center of Tokyo Medical University. Of these, 2,895 patients with analyzable clinical data participated in this study.
EP under 10 years old and in their twenties prevailed. On Saturdays or Sundays the number of EP was about twice that of weekdays. On holidays it was 3 times. Shinjuku-ku, Nakano-ku and Suginami-ku were the major areas that EP came from, and some were from the Santama-area and outside Tokyo. The most frequent disease was acute pharyngolaryngitis (18.7％), followed by acute otitis media (16.8％), nasal bleeding (16.0％) and foreign body (11.6％). EP arrived at the hospital most frequently from 21:00 to 3:00, amounting to 75.9％ of all.
Eighty-seven EP were admitted. The major diseases for admission were acute pharyngolaryngitis, vertigo and nasal bleeding.
About 60％ of EP were not of high emergency level, probably because we though our hospital has been approved as the supreme emergency center, it has also been selected as a primary emergency center or extra-time (night and holiday) care unit. This result suggests an acute shortage of primary emergency centers and the extra-time care units.
In the present state of affairs, the working environment of duty doctors is hard. It's necessary to review the system of duties.
Key words : otolaryngology, emergency patients, emergency clinics, extra-time care units