BCN HEALTH publishes a study evaluating hospital incidence and medical costs associated with lupus in Spain

BCN HEALTH has published the study "Incidence and medical costs of lupus in Spanish hospitals: a retrospective database analysis" in the Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, an international peer-reviewed journal covering all aspects of rare diseases and orphan drugs.

BCN HEALTH conducted a retrospective study based on records of patients diagnosed with lupus and treated in public and private hospitals in Spain between January 2016 and December 2020. The aim of this study was to review the incidence data of the disease at hospital level, and to calculate the associated medical costs.

In total, data from 329 patients were reviewed. Sixty-four percent were women with a median age of 54 years. Patients had a variety of comorbidities including hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and asthma. The lupus mortality rate was almost 4%. The number of admissions due to lupus decreased significantly during the study period.

The average length of hospital stay was 7 days, with an average cost per hospitalization of 6,356 euros. The total cost of lupus in Spain at the hospital level was 140,424.20 million euros in the study period.