[Development of gastrointestinal infectious diseases between 2000 and 2012]

Infectious gastroenterological diseases are of increasing medical and health-economic significance.

To evaluate the development of gastroenterolgical infections (GI) over the past 10 years, we have analysed the published data of the German Federal Statistics Office on GI hospital admissions between 2001 and 2011 and the data on cases of infection reported to the Robert-Koch Institute between 2001 and 2012.

In 2011 520795 patients with infectious diarrhoea (ICD 10 A00-A09) required hospital admission. The number of coded main diagnoses alone has more than doubled from 127867 to 282199 cases per year. The increase in the group of over 65-year-old patients was particularly high. The highest increase among hospitalised patients was seen for Clostridium difficile infections (99779 cases in 2011) together with noro- and rotavirus infections, whereas the number of cases with salmonella declined. The number of hospital deaths related to infectious gastrointestinal diseases (major clinical diagnosis) rose from 401 in 2000 to 4152 in 2011. Particularly frequent were deaths coded under the ICD 10 diagnosis A04, which includes Clostridium difficile infections (CDI).

In spite of the limitations due to differing data sources, reporting and recording rules, the analysed data do allow conclusions as to the development of the last 10 years. Gastrointestinal infections have not only markedly increased but also required increasing hospital capacities in gastroenterological departments. Since, with the exception of rotavirus infections, no vaccination strategies are available, these developments will have to be combatted above all by improved infectiological training for gastroenterologists.