Cost of Disease Progression for Patients With Multiple Myeloma
Posted: Wednesday, June 16, 2021
The results of a report published in Blood Cancer Journal suggested that treatments to delay disease progression in patients with multiple myeloma within the first year of diagnosis yield savings in subsequent health-care resource utilization and disease management costs. Rafael Fonseca, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, Phoenix, and colleagues found that the economic burden of disease progression appeared to be greater among patients whose disease progressed within the first 12 months of initiating treatment than for those whose disease did not, highlighting the impacts of early relapse and aggressive disease.
“These savings should be considered in frameworks assessing the value of innovative treatments for multiple myeloma,” the study team concluded.
Using an extensive U.S. claims database, the researchers retrospectively analyzed annual health-care resource utilization and costs among more than 3,500 patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma between 2008 and 2018. Of those patients, 934 experienced disease progression within 12 months of initiating treatment, and 2,665 did not experience such disease progression after their first line of therapy. Disease progression was defined as advancement to the next line of therapy; development of complications such as bone metastasis, hypercalcemia, soft-tissue plasmacytoma, skeletal-related events, or acute kidney disease; or death.
In patients who underwent stem cell therapy and received systemic antimyeloma therapy, the economic burden of disease progression was substantial. The researchers found higher mean annual hospitalizations for patients with disease progression than those without disease progression. The total annual health-care costs were also higher for patients with disease progression than those without disease progression in all lines of therapy. The average incremental annual costs between 2006 and 2018 in the first, second, and third lines of therapy were $18,359, $87,055, and $71,917, respectively. To account for temporal variation, patients who initiated first, second, and third lines of therapy between 2013 and 2018, the figures were $46,024, $100,329, and $101,942.
“These savings should be considered in frameworks assessing the value of innovative treatments for multiple myeloma,” the study team concluded.
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit nature.com.
