WEDNESDAY, Nov. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- There has been a decrease in hospital discharges for sepsis, skin and soft tissue infections, and urinary tract infections (UTI) among patients with psoriatic arthritis during the past several years, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, held virtually from Nov. 3 to 9.
Vagishwari Murugesan, M.D., from the Boston University Medical Center, and colleagues investigated national trends in serious infections in U.S. patients with psoriatic arthritis using National Inpatient Sample data (2012 to 2017).
The researchers found a total of 50,700 hospital discharge diagnoses of psoriatic arthritis in 2012, including 125 patients diagnosed with pneumonia, 230 patients with sepsis, 312 with a skin or soft tissue infection, and 174 with a UTI. By comparison, in 2017, there were 179,400 discharge diagnoses of psoriatic arthritis, with 344 patients diagnosed with pneumonia, 374 with sepsis, 681 with skin and soft tissue infection, and 348 with a UTI. Over time, there was a statistically significant drop observed in hospital discharges for sepsis, skin and soft tissue infections, and UTI when adjusting for age. There were no statistical differences noted in pneumonia trends.
"Some patients are initially hesitant to start immunosuppressive agents for treatment and understanding this information can provide a clearer idea of how this risk of infection is translated in real life and helps differentiate the risk of minor infections from serious infections in this subset of patients," Murugesan said in a statement.
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