Decreasing mortality and hospitalizations with rising costs related to gastric cancer in the USA: an epidemiological perspective.

Background: There is no convincing data on the trends of hospitalizations, mortality, cost, and demographic variations associated with inpatient admissions for gastric cancer in the USA. The aim of this study was to use a national database of US hospitals to evaluate the trends associated with gastric cancer.

Methods: We analyzed the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database for all patients in whom gastric cancer (ICD-9 code: 151.