Prevalence of Asthma Bronchiale in the Czech Republic and its Economic Burden

Abstract

Asthma Bronchiale (AB) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways currently affecting around 350,000,000 patients in the world. A steady increase in prevalence of this disease was the incentive for our study of the prevalence of AB in the Czech Republic. Special attention was focused on possible differential regional incidence. We found that prevalence of this disease in an age group 0-14 years is 5.21%, in age group of 15-19 is 11.5%. In the 2000-2013 period, we observed a 268% increase in the 0-14 group and 685% increase in the 15-19 group. Using published materials, we used medical costs values from other European countries, which are in range of 600 to 3,200 dollars to calculate the finacial burden in the Czech Republic. When we used a conservative estimate of $1,200, the total costs of AB treatment in the 0-14 years group is $66,475,200 per year. When compared with the year 2000, the increase in financial costs is more than $50,000,000, with the anticipated increase of $30,000,000 every single year. These findings indicate that there is a necessity to increase interest in primary prevention and early diagnosis of this disease.