Demographic disparities of children presenting with symptomatic Meckel's diverticulum in children's hospitals.

PURPOSE: Most of the literature about Meckel's diverticulum (MD) consists of single institutional longitudinal case series. We queried the pediatric hospital information system (PHIS) database to obtain information about the epidemiology of MD from a large number of children at geographically diverse locations.

METHODS: After IRB approval, the PHIS database was queried over a 9-year period for de-identified patients with both ICD-9 diagnoses of MD and a procedure code for Meckel's diverticulectomy. Data from five hospitals were excluded due to incomplete information.

RESULTS: 4,338,396 were children admitted during the study interval; 945 had a symptomatic MD. The incidence decreased with age: 56.4% were under 5 years old, 26.8% were between the ages of 6-12 years, and 16.8% were older than 12 years. 74% were male, which was significantly higher than the PHIS population (53.8% male, P < 0.0001). Caucasians are over-represented in the symptomatic MD group (63.4%) compared to the rest of the PHIS population (48.1%, P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS: According to the PHIS data, there appears to be significant gender and race influence on symptomatic MD. Males present more commonly, as do non-Hispanic White patients, while it is less common among non-Hispanic Black patients.