Abstract: ObjectiveTo explore influence factors for hospitalization expense among esophageal cancer patients and to provide a basis for controlling unreasonable increase of hospitalization expense.MethodsInpatient data of esophageal cancer patients were collected from a general hospital of grade three in Shanxi province between August 2002 and December 2011 and were descriptively analyzed for the composition and change trend of hospitalization expense during the period.Potential influence factors were examined with univariate and multiple stepwise regression analysis.ResultsA total of 1 819 esophageal cancer inpatients were admitted in the hospital during the period.The average age of the inpatients was 58.47 ? 8.20 years and 77.74% of them were farmer.Squamous cell carcinoma accounted for 82.90% of the patients.The mean time of the hospitalization was about 19 days.The hospitalization expense per inpatient was 19 249.78?15 472.23 RMB Yuan.An annually increasing trend was noticed for the expense,with an average annual increase of 15.28%.The main influence factors for the expense were age,the proportion of drug expense,hospitalization time,whether having medical insurance,with or without complication,pathological type of the tumor,treatment outcome,and the age of the inpatient.In particular,hospitalization expenditure of the patients with health insurance was higher than those without the insurance(F=135.609,P<0.001).ConclusionComprehensive measures need to be taken to control hospitalization expense.Drug expense and hospitalization time should be controlled to decrease hospitalization expense among esophageal cance patients.