Abstract
BACKGROUND: Alcoholic hepatitis (AH) results in significant morbidity, mortality and healthcare burden. We aimed to evaluate the temporal trends of AH hospitalizations in the last decade and to devise a mortality scoring system for risk stratification. METHODS: National Inpatient Sample (NIS) databases from 2009-2019 were used to identify AH hospitalizations. Outcomes of interest included temporal trend analysis of length of stay (LOS), mean inpatient cost (MIC), mortality, and mortality predictors. A mortality scoring system was derived using multivariate Cox regression and validated using receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS: There was an increase in total AH hospitalizations, from 67,070 in 2009 to 125,540 in 2019 (P=0.004). The inpatient mortality increased from 2.48% in 2009 to 3.78% in 2019 (P=0.008). The MIC was $31,189 in 2009 and $62,229 in 2019 (P<0.001). A trend for LOS was not significant. Ten variables were selected for incorporation into a risk score, including anemia, age >60 years, female sex, mechanical ventilation, vasopressor use, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, hepatorenal syndrome, acute renal failure, coagulopathy (thrombocytopenia), and hepatic encephalopathy. The score has a maximum of eight points, and the cutoff for predicting mortality was set as 4 points. The area under the curve (AUC) of the derivation cohort was 0.8766 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.865-0.888) and AUC 0.862 (95%CI 0.855-0.868) for a 30-day period. CONCLUSIONS: There has been an increase in AH hospitalizations and mortality in the last decade. The Tahira score provides an easy objective method to estimate inpatient 30-day mortality for AH hospitalizations.