Objective: To evaluate, for the first time, the characteristics of patients with acute asthma who died during hospitalization in Spain and Latin America, as well as to evaluate factors associated with asthma mortality. Methods: A retrospective review of hospital records of 3,038 patients with asthma (aged 15-69 years) admitted to nineteen tertiary care hospitals in Spain and in eight Latin-American countries in 1994, 1999, and 2004. Results: There were 25 deaths (0.8% of all hospitalized patients) during the three years studied. Although there was a tendency towards a reduction in in-hospital mortality (from 0.97% in 1994 to 0.69% in 2004), there were no significant differences in terms of year or geographic area. Intensive care unit admissions and cases of out of hospital cardiopulmonary arrest increased the mortality rates to 8.3% and 24.7%, respectively. The multivariate analysis showed that gender (female; OR = 25.5; 95% CI: 2.6-246.8), out of hospital cardiopulmonary arrest (OR = 22.5; 95% CI: 4.4-114.7), and arterial pH < 7.3 during hospitalization (OR = 1.0; 95% CI: 1.1-3.4) were strongly associated with asthma mortality. Conclusions: Our study on mortality in patients hospitalized for acute severe asthma showed that deaths occurred almost exclusively in female patients and in patients who suffered out of hospital cardiopulmonary arrest, confirming previous findings from studies conducted in developed countries.

Keywords: Asthma/mortality; Asthma/epidemiology; Hospitalization; Hospital mortality.