Lupus: one in six readmitted to hospital within 30 days of discharge

Singer Kelle Bryan is one of the 60,000 people in the UK with lupus

One in six people with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in the US is readmitted to hospital within 30 days of being discharged, says a study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology. Black and Hispanic people were more likely to be readmitted than white patients, the study found.
Lupus is a systemic, autoimmune disease where an overactive immune system attacks healthy joints and organs. Medical evidence reports that up to 25% of SLE patients require treatment in hospital each year, accounting for more than 140,000 hospitalisations in the US. SLE has the sixth highest rate of readmission among all medical conditions in the US according to a 2010 study.
So a team looked at data from 31,903 people with lupus readmitted between 2008 and 2009 from five states. Analyses included people with SLE who were 18 years of age or older who were readmitted to hospital (and excluded hospital transfers, discharges to nursing or rehabilitation facilities, maternity-related admissions or patients who died).
Results show that there were 9,244 (17%) readmissions into the hospital within 30 days of discharge. The readmissions were found among 4,916 individual SLE patients. Clinical features most associated with readmission included people with lupus nephritis (kidney inflammation), serositis (inflammation of the lining of the lungs, heart, abdomen, or abdominal organs) and thrombocytopenia (low blood platelet count). Age was inversely related to readmission, suggesting that severe organ involvement in younger SLE patients may be partly to blame.
Hospitals with higher readmissions for SLE did not have higher admissions for other chronic conditions such as heart failure or pneumonia, which the authors believe is condition-specific to SLE readmissions and warrants further study.