[Description of hospital discharges in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus]

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that mainly affects young women and whose mortality is increasing for this age group.

We used the national registry of Hospital discharges in Spain based on the study of the Minimum Basic Data Set (MBDS) to analyze hospital discharges of patients whose diagnosis included that of LES.

A cross-sectional, descriptive study was performed of all episodes coded as having LES using ICD-9-MC coding system of the patients hospitalized within the period 2005-2008.

A total of 5,464 episodes were identified, 1,855 (33%) as main diagnosis and 3,609 (66%) as secondary diagnosis. Patients having LES the main diagnosis were younger (41.56 ± 17.55 vs 56.07 ± 19.01 years; P < .001), had fewer elective admittances (62.5 vs 84.8%; P<.001), lower comorbidity as measured by the Charlson's index (Charlson>2; 18 vs 35%; P<.001) and lower mortality (1.1 vs 5.4%; P < .001).

Patients admitted to internal medicine departments in Spain with a diagnosis of LES accounts for 0.3% of the total. Two different groups of patients are identified. The first group was younger, had lower comorbidity and were in the early phases of diagnosis and/or treatment. The second group was more numerous, older, with a higher comorbidity, with admittances frequently related to infections or cardiovascular complications and higher mortality rate.