Ehizogie Edigin, MD: SLE Flare Hospitalizations Decreased Over 2 Decades

Ehizogie Edigin, MD, Internal Medicine, John H Stroger Jr Hospital of Cook County, presented a study at the American College of Rheumatology 2021 Convergence. His study was titled, "Hospitalization for SLE Flare has Reduced over 2 Decades in the United States: A Longitudinal Population-based Study".

In this study, investigators found that the incidence of hospitalization for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) flare has decreased. However, when looking specifically at the African American population, systemic lupus erythematosus flare has increased.

Investigators noted that the reduction in hospitalizations could be due to the improvement of outpatient care and recognition of systemic lupus erythematosus flare.

Data were obtained for this study from the largest hospitalization database in the US, the National Inpatient Sample database (NIS). The longitudinal trend analysis was conducted over 21 years and looked at data from 1998-2018.

The incidence of SLE flare hospitalization reduced from 4.1 per 100,000 in 1998 down to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2018. However, in the African American population, SLE flare hospitalizations increased from 37.7% in 1998 to 44.7% in 2018.

Investigators said that racial trends between the SLE flare group and the control group were similar. While the results of the overall population showed a positive trend, additional research on the racial disparities are needed.

The motivation was to study longitudinal trends of SLE flare hospitalizations over the last 2 decades because longitudinal data are limited on SLE flare hospitalizations.