Increased clinician awareness of a specific clinical condition should be considered as an alternative source of an apparent rise in its incidence. However, this explanation is implausible in the case of PANF, as it remains a very rare complication, as evidenced in the see more current study with NF codes used in 0.004% of pregnancy-associated hospitalizations, and with most clinicians and hospitals in the state never encountering a PANF patient. It may thus be hypothesized that the present findings reflect actual rise in the incidence of PANF in the state. There are several possible explanations for rising incidence of PANF in this cohort. Chronic

IACS-10759 manufacturer comorbidities, well known to increase risk of infection and NF [24] were present in nearly one-third of PANF hospitalizations at the end of study period. In addition, obesity was increasingly present in our cohort. Obesity is a well-known risk factor for NF [6], has been associated with increased risk

of infections in pregnancy [25], and is more specifically linked with increasing risk of cesarean section [25, 26]. The latter has been often associated with PANF in prior reports [11, 12]. It is likely that the rate of obesity was underreported in this cohort, as can be the case in administrative data sets [27]. The rising rate of cesarean section in the US over the past decade [28] may have contributed to the rising incidence of PANF, a hypothesis supported by our findings of

the majority of reported NF events occurring as postpartum selleck chemical hospitalizations. However, the de-identified structure of the administrative data set used in the present study precludes linking postpartum hospitalizations to specific preceding delivery hospitalizations to confirm this hypothesis. Additional study in other states and nationally is required to further elucidate the epidemiology of PANF. Findings of the race/ethnicity composition of the women in the present study and the predominance of Medicaid as the most common type TCL of health insurance, reflect the obstetric population in Texas, but may vary in other settings. The age distribution noted in the present cohort is in line with the majority of pregnancies occurring in the 20–34 years age group. The majority of PANF hospitalizations did not have reported chronic comorbidities. This finding contrasts reports on NF in the general population, with the majority of patients having one or more chronic illnesses [6]. However, when chronic comorbidities were present in patients, diabetes was the predominant one, similar to reports in the general population with NF [6, 7]. These results are in agreement with reported cases and case series of PANF, with most affected patients without chronic illness. Obesity was reported in about 1 in 5 of our patients in this study and, as noted earlier, may have been underreported.