Trends in Sarcoidosis-Related Hospitalizations in the United States

There is disparity in the rate of sarcoidosis-associated hospitalizations between black and white individuals in the United States, according to a study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

This study included 376,947 hospitalizations of 200,438 (53%) black and 176,509 (47%) white individuals. Peak hospitalization occurred between the ages of 40 and 64 in black individuals, with black women hospitalized at a rate of 238 per 100,000 (95% CI, 233-243) and black men hospitalized at a rate of 123 per 100,000 (95% CI, 119-127). Peak hospitalization for whites occurred over the age of 65 at a rate of 43 per 100,000 (95% CI, 42-45) for women and 25 per 100,000 (95% CI, 24-26) for men.

Black women in the Midwest faced the highest rate of hospitalization after adjusting for age, at 167 per 100,000 (95% CI, 166-169), while the rate of hospitalization in the Northeast was 133 per 100,000 (95% CI, 132-133). Black men faced the highest rates of hospitalization in the Midwest at 8 per 100,000 (95% CI, 84-85) and the Northeast at 85 per 100,000 (95% CI, 84-86). Black women were 7 to 10 times more likely to experience sarcoidosis-associated hospitalizations than white women, while black men were 5 to 8 times more likely than white men.

Discharge data on sarcoidosis-associated hospitalizations was collected from the State Inpatient Databases, which recorded 97% of all discharges from community hospitals in 48 states for 2002 to 2012. Continuous race reporting was provided by 18 states, which contained data for 60% of the country’s total population. The regions of the country were categorized as follows: Midwest, Northeast, South, and West. The regional populations’ demographic data were estimated using United States census data, which were also used to perform age adjustments.

The study researchers concluded that there is “a consistent and marked racial disparity in [sarcoidosis-associated] hospitalizations across all four regions of the United States. The black:white racial disparity was of similar magnitude across regions. Although prior studies have described rates separately by racial group and region in a national sample of women and by race and region separately, these studies did not present rates by racial groups within regions.”

Reference

Wills AB, Adjemian JA, Fontana JR, et al. Sarcoidosis-associated hospitalizations in the United States, 2002-2012 [published online September 10, 2018]. Ann Am Thorac Soc. doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.201806-401RL