Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Have Better Outcomes Than Non-Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients When Hospitalized for Ischemic Stroke: Analysis of the National Inpatient Sample

Objectives The aims of this study were to compare the outcomes of patients primarily admitted for ischemic stroke with and without a secondary diagnosis of RA. Methods Data were abstracted from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) 2016 and 2017 database. The NIS was searched for hospitalizations for adult patients with ischemic stroke as principal diagnosis with and without RA as secondary diagnosis using International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision codes. The primary outcome was inpatient mortality. Hospital length of stay (LOS), total hospital charges, odds of receiving tissue plasminogen activator, and mechanical thrombectomy were secondary outcomes of interest. Multivariate logistic and linear regression analyses were used accordingly to adjust for confounders. Results There were more than 71 million discharges included in the combined 2016 and 2017 NIS database. Of 525,570 patients with ischemic stroke, 8670 (1.7%) had RA. Hospitalizations for ischemic stroke with RA had less inpatient mortality (4.7% vs. 5.5%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.66; 95% confidence interval, 0.52–0.85; p = 0.001), shorter LOS (5.1 vs 5.7 days, p
Source: JCR: Journal of Clinical Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research