Longitudinal trends of systemic lupus erythematous hospitalizations in the United States: a two-decade population-based study

Background Longitudinal data are limited on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) hospitalizations. We aim to study longitudinal trends of SLE hospitalizations in the last 2 decades in the United States (U.S). Methods Data were obtained from the National Inpatient Sample database (NIS). We performed a 21-year longitudinal trend analysis of NIS 1998–2018. We searched for hospitalizations for adult patients with a “principal” diagnosis of SLE (SLE flare group) and those with “any” diagnosis of SLE (all SLE hospitalization group) using ICD codes. All non-SLE hospitalizations for adult patients were used as the control. Multivariable logistic and linear regression were used appropriately to calculate adjusted p -trend for the outcomes of interest. Results Incidence of SLE flare hospitalization reduced from 4.1 to 3.2 per 100,000 U.S persons from 1998 to 2018 (adjusted p -trend