Health Economic Research Study Demonstrates Increased Use of New Medicines in the Treatment of Patients with Pancreatic Cancer Reduces Total Cost of Care - Seite 2

Total cost of care for patients in this analysis reached a maximum of $280,443 and $312,077 for first and second year of care respectively. Also, between 1997 and 2016 inflation adjusted first- and second-year non-medication charges on pancreatic cancer care averaged $66,999.96 and $105,308.60 respectively.

The study analyzed longitudinal patient-level data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS, 1996 – 2017). The study evaluated 80 patients who had a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and available prescription data. Individual age and employment status were accounted for as covariates. Notably, the data revealed that while prescription medicine expenses have increased as part of the total cost of treating patients with pancreatic cancer over the last ten years, the overall healthcare cost of treating pancreatic cancer patients has gone down.

All analyses were performed using R version 3.6.1 on Ubuntu 19.04. Means and standard deviations were computed for the raw and inflation-adjusted total health care costs excluding drug spending. Study averages were computed for the total health care costs, including prescription medicine costs for the period between 2009-2016 which included approval and use of novel treatment approaches such as Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel), FOLFIRINOX and erlotinib. The prescription medicines expenses, and proportion of healthcare spending were also plotted along with a LOESS curve using the same parameters. All expenditures are adjusted for inflation using 2012 U.S. Dollars.

As a result of this health economic outcomes study, further analysis of a larger, longitudinal set of patient-level data is needed to more fully explore the relationship between spending on medical innovation, and reduction in total cost of patient care, as well as improvements in quality of life.

Details of this study were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO GI) held on January 23 to 25, 2020 in San Francisco, California. The poster was presented on Friday, January 24, 2020, from 12:00 PM PT to 1:30 PM PT and 4:30 PM PT to 5:30 PM PT during the Poster Display Session in Poster Hall. The poster is available on our website (www.tymeinc.com/data-publications).

The health economic outcomes poster on pancreatic cancer presented at the ASCO GI Cancer Symposium in San Francisco is as follows:  

Title: An Assessment of the Total Cost of Pancreatic Cancer Using Real-World Evidence