A new retrospective analysis highlights a “substantial economic burden” associated with key acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment episodes in commercially insured patients.
Results of the analysis were published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (July 2020;26[7]:849-859).
In the US, the incidence of AML has steadily increased over the past decade. Real-world analyses that examine the costs associated with different AML treatment episodes in the commercially insured US population are scarce and difficult to assemble.
Bhavik J Pandya, PharmD, Astellas Pharma (Northbrook, IL), and colleagues designed an analysis to examine the health resource utilization (HRU), clinical burden, and direct health care costs across AML treatment episodes in a large sample of commercially insured US patients. The retrospective cohort analysis considered newly diagnosed patients from IQVIA’s Real-World Data Adjudicated Claims Database and the IQVIA Charge Detail Master Hospital Database.
Researchers determined all-cause HRU by considering physician office visits, nonphysician office visits, ED visits, inpatient visits, and outpatient pharmacy utilization. Additionally, all-cause health care costs included total allowed costs and was reported by the same cost components.
In total, the study sample included 1542 high-intensity chemotherapy-induction patients, 591 high-intensity chemotherapy-consolidation patients, 628 low-intensity chemotherapy patients, 1000 patients with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), and 707 patients with relapsed or refractory disease.
Researchers found that total mean episode costs were highest in relapsed or refractory episodes ($439,104), followed by HSCT ($329,621), high-intensity induction chemotherapy ($198,657), high-intensity consolidation chemotherapy ($73,428), and low-intensity chemotherapy ($53,081) episodes. Inpatients hospitalizations, they noted, was the largest contributor to cost – accounting for approximately 70% of cost across all treatment groups.
“This resource utilization and direct health care cost analysis demonstrates the substantial economic burden associated with various AML treatment episodes, especially during high-intensity induction chemotherapy, HSCT, and relapsed or refractory episodes,” authors of the study concluded.—Zachary Bessette
