P2613 - Seasonal Variation in Hospital Admissions, Length of Stay and Mortality for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Ramya Vasireddy, MBBS¹, Joseph Atarere, MD, MPH¹, Thilini Delungahawatta, MBBS¹, Boniface Mensah, MBChB, MPH¹, Simardeep Singh, MBBS¹, Greeshma Gaddipati, MBBS¹, Mariah Malak Bilalaga, MBBS¹, Ted Akhiwu, MBBS, MPH¹, Olachi Egbo, MD², Katie Dunleavy, MBChB³, Jasmine Barrow, MD^4
1MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, MD; ²Aurora Medical Center, Oshkosh, WI; ³Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; ⁴MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, Baltimore, MD

Introduction: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), comprising Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), is marked by alternating phases of inflammation and remission. Its multifactorial etiology typically involves genetic predisposition, microbiome composition, immune system dysregulation and environmental influences, with recent literature (PMID 31234325) suggesting a seasonal pattern in disease exacerbation. In this study, we aimed to assess what impact, if any, the 4 major seasons had on the proportion of IBD-related admissions and if these differed across census regions in the United States (US).





Methods: We obtained data from the 2016 to 2020 iterations of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) for this study. All adults with a primary discharge diagnosis (DX1) of IBD were included. The outcome of interest was the seasonal variation in IBD-related admissions. We also collected information on age, sex, race, health insurance status, hospital census region, length of stay (LOS) and in-hospital mortality. We compared the proportion of all IBD-related admissions by season of the year, overall and by IBD subtype. We also examined for seasonal differences in IBD-related admissions across hospital census regions by IBD subtype.

Results: 87,901 adults with a discharge diagnosis of IBD met inclusion criteria for this study. A greater proportion of the IBD admissions were female (46,340; 53.3%) and of White race (62,468; 73.2%). The highest proportion of IBD admissions were to hospitals in the South (33,534; 38.2%), the overall mean hospital LOS was 5 days while the mean mortality rate was 0.3%. The mean mortality rate for ulcerative colitis was higher than that for Crohn’s disease (0.5% vs 0.2%). The highest proportion of overall IBD admissions occurred in the Summer (June to August) while the lowest was in the Winter (December to February) (26.1% vs 24.3%), and the difference was greater for ulcerative colitis (26.7% vs 24.0%) than for Crohn’s disease (25.7% vs 24.5%). Seasonal variation in admission was highest in the West (26.7% vs 22.8%; Δ 3.9%; p=0.026).

Discussion: The highest proportion of IBD admissions were observed in the Summer, especially for ulcerative colitis. The high seasonal variation in admissions noted in the West may be due to differences in the weather between the Northwest and Southwest. We found no significant seasonal disparities in hospital LOS or mortality. Further studies are needed to ascertain causal relationships and explore potential impacts on disease outcomes.



Disclosures:


Ramya Vasireddy, MBBS¹, Joseph Atarere, MD, MPH¹, Thilini Delungahawatta, MBBS¹, Boniface Mensah, MBChB, MPH¹, Simardeep Singh, MBBS¹, Greeshma Gaddipati, MBBS¹, Mariah Malak Bilalaga, MBBS¹, Ted Akhiwu, MBBS, MPH¹, Olachi Egbo, MD², Katie Dunleavy, MBChB³, Jasmine Barrow, MD⁴. P2613 - Seasonal Variation in Hospital Admissions, Length of Stay and Mortality for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease, ACG 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts. Philadelphia, PA: American College of Gastroenterology.