Trends in Hospitalization and Inpatient Outcomes of Behçet's Disease: A Nationwide Inpatient Sample Study

Objective After an extensive review of the literature, we discovered that no study had addressed trends in hospitalization for people with Behçet's disease (BD). Hence, in this study, we explore multiple variables in patients with BD in the US for the year 2016. Methods We analyzed the data relating to hospitalized patients for the year 2016 using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database with a listed discharge diagnosis of BD based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) diagnosis code M35.2. The mean age in years, alive discharges, lumbar puncture procedures, type of hospital, the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), comorbidities, mean length of stay (LOS) and factors affecting it, and total cost and charges for the admissions were analyzed. A p-value of <.05 was considered statistically significant. Results A total of 2,605 discharges with the diagnoses of BD were identified among 35.7 million overall discharges in 2016. Among patients hospitalized with underlying BD, the majority were white and female. The mean hospital LOS was 5.57 ± 0.37 days, which is higher than in the general population and statistically significant (5.57 days vs 4.62 days; p: 0.009). Mean LOS in patients undergoing lumbar puncture was 8.54 ± 2.91 days. Patients with BD had lower medical comorbidity burden (16.9% with a CCI of ≥3) vs the general population (24.67% with a CCI of ≥3) (p: 0.00). Medical comorbidities with a statistically significant difference in their prevalence in the two groups were renal disease, dementia, peptic ulcer disease, heart failure, rheumatologic disorders, malignancy, and dyslipidemia. Conclusion Increased awareness about this rare condition in an inpatient setting will help in the early identification of the disease and associated complications. This will help caregivers to provide quality care in a timely manner, thereby decreasing the morbidity, mortality, LOS, and hospital costs associated with BD.