Background: According to WHO statistics, injuries are among the main causes of contemporary health problems. Injury statistics have been showing a continuing upward trend over years. This is due to numerous factors, such as technological progress, increased life expectancy, change of lifestyle, growing popularity of sports and changes in working conditions. The structures affected by injuries within the knee joint include the ligaments, menisci, articular cartilage and patellar retinacula, with the most common injuries being those to the ligamentous apparatus and menisci. The main objective of this paper is to determine the number of patients hospitalised due to a primary knee injury.
Material and methods: Determination of the number of patients hospitalised due to a primary knee injury was performed using the API Interface of National Health Fund (NFZ) Statistics-Benefits Version 1.0. The process of acquiring information on the number of patients consisted of four stages: preparation of a list of primary diagnoses according to ICD-10 classification, analysis of the ordinances of the President of NFZ concerning the conclusion and implementation of contracts on hospital treatment to select products that could be used to bill hospitalisation of patients with selected types of diagnosis, generating medical data using the API Interface of National Health Fund Statistics-Benefits and analysis of reporting data obtained.
Results: According to data reported to NFZ, a total of 101,773 patients were hospitalised due to traumatic knee injuries over the period of three years (2016-2018), which gives an average of ca. 34,000 patients annually.
Conclusions: 1. Knee injuries represent a very serious health problem in Poland. 2. Knee injuries most frequently affect the ligaments and menisci. 3. It seems necessary to develop a complete nation-wide database with up-to-date information on injuries in Poland that would enable providers to adapt medical services to the current needs of the patients.
Keywords: epidemiology of knee injuries; injuries; knee; knee injuries.