What Are the Health Care Resource Costs for US Pediatric Patients With SCD?

Pediatric patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) have higher health care resource use and costs than matched controls without SCD, according to a recent study.

The study was led by Giovanna Barcelos, of Pfizer, and presented at the 2024 American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Conference held April 3–6, 2024, in Seattle, Washington.

A total of 1,299 patients and 1,299 controls were retrospectively identified from the International Business Machines (IBM®) MarketScan® Commercial Database, then matched 1:1 for age, gender, US region, and race. The patients were younger than 18 years old (median, 10 years old), commercially insured, and had three or more inpatient or outpatient SCD diagnoses.

The patients had a median follow-up of 35.1 months, while the controls had a median follow-up of 33.5 months. During the follow-up, 34.9% of patients received hydroxyurea, 23.0% received at least one blood transfusion, and 61.3% received an opioid pain medication. Complications included vaso-occlusive crisis (70.8% of patients vs 0% of controls) and retinopathy (6.5% of patients vs 0% of controls).

Per year, the SCD group had more inpatient hospitalizations, outpatient visits, emergency room visits, prescriptions, and longer length of stay than the control group. For the SCD cohort, the mean costs per year were also higher across all health care resource use categories: inpatient costs ($15,195 vs $477, respectively), outpatient costs including emergency room ($12,746 vs $1,758, respectively), and pharmacy costs ($3,504 vs $610, respectively), for a total of $31,445 for patients and $2,844 for controls (all P< 0.0001).

The total out-of-pocket costs per person per year was $2,071 for patients, compared with $489 for controls (P < 0.0001).

“This study excluded children without commercial insurance, who may have higher burden; however, the results highlight the substantial economic burden of pediatric patients with SCD enrolled in US commercial insurance plans,” the researchers concluded.

Funding for this study was provided by Pfizer.

Reference

Barcelos G, Peixoto T, Alvir J, et al. “Economic burden of sickle cell disease for children in the United States with commercial insurance.” Poster #105. Presented at the 2024 American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Conference; April 3–6, 2024; Seattle, Washington.