There is a disproportionate burden of hospital use among Black patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), according to a research letter published online Aug. 11 in JAMA Dermatology.

Ehizogie Edigin, M.D., from the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, and colleagues conducted an 11-year longitudinal trend analysis of the National Inpatient Sample database from 2008 through 2018 to examine HS-related hospitalizations in the United States and examined the racial breakdown among those with HS.

The researchers included 97,327 hospitalizations with any HS diagnosis in the analysis and compared them to 184.5 million total adult hospitalizations as a control. Between 2008 and 2018, there was an increase observed in the incidence of hospitalizations with any HS diagnosis, from 3.5 to 6.9 per 100,000 persons (P < 0.001). During the same period, there was an increase in the proportion of Black patients admitted with a principal HS diagnosis, from 49.7 to 62.9 percent (P < 0.001), while the proportion of all hospitalized adult Black patients increased from 12.9 to 15.1 percent (P = 0.21). Among White, Hispanic, and Asian patients, the trends in the proportion of those hospitalized with HS were similar to those of controls.

"The present results support that Black patients disproportionately experience HS, with increasing magnitude over time, and further investigation is needed," the authors write.

One author disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

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