Editorial to “Sickle‐Cell Disease‐associated Arrhythmias and In‐hospital Outcomes: Insights from the National Inpatient Sample”

In this issue of the Journal of Arrhythmia, Patel et al analyzed and reported the frequency of arrhythmia and its trends over time from a national database in patients hospitalized with sickle‐cell disease. 2 The authors used the National Inpatient Sample, which is a nationally representative survey of hospitalizations conducted by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Reviewing hospitalizations for sickle cell disease from 2000 to 2016, Fingar et al showed that the primary reasons for hospitalization include respiratory system‐related illnesses and pain crises. 3 The possible factors triggering arrhythmias in these hospitalized patients could be the underlying respiratory illness, which led to hypoxemia, myocardial ischemia, metabolic disturbances, and systemic inflammation. [...]the overall frequency of arrhythmias reflects patients who require inpatient hospitalization and may reflect a sicker population of sickle‐cell disease patients.