Non-tuberculous mycobacteria pulmonary disease in Texas: an analysis of 8 years of hospital discharge data.

BACKGROUND: Non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) pulmonary disease (PD) is a recognized chronic condition associated with high healthcare utilization. Texas statewide NTM diagnosis-coded inpatient discharges per 100,000 discharge records (healthcare utilization) have not been systematically studied. METHODS: We analyzed Texas hospital inpatient discharge public use data between 2016 and 2023 for all 254 Texas counties. MS-EXCEL and SPSS were used for data collection and analysis. RESULTS: Out of 23.33 million hospital discharge records, 12,587 were identified to have an NTM diagnosis-coded inpatient discharge. Among the patients with NTM, 3.3% of the patients were aged 0-17 years, 19.5% were 18-44 years, 29.5% were 45-64 years, and 47.7% were 65 + years old. The NTM diagnosis-coded inpatient discharge rate in Texas was calculated to be 59.9/100,000 records (range 46.1-62.6). A total of 815 NTM cases were reported in Northeast Texas and 4,203 cases in the Gulf Coast counties. The total number of in-hospital deaths among the NTM-coded discharges was 692 (5.5% of total NTM cases). The number of patients with NTM covered under Medicare Part A was 5,102 and 1,521 were on Medicaid. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the hospital discharge data analysis, there appears to be regional variation in the prevalence of NTM disease in Texas. Further studies are needed to determine these variations and to improve our understanding of NTM-PD in Texas.