Abstract
Background/Objective: Although often called a “silent disease”, HBV entails a significant disease and financial burden for the health system. An attempt to provide detailed estimates of the direct cost of this – rather neglected – disease in Greece comprised the objective of this study. Methods: The medical records of 254 patients diagnosed with HBV and monitored in the Hepatology Unit of the ‘Attikon’ university hospital provided the basis for the analysis. Detailed resource use data (physician visits, medications, labwork, and hospitalizations) were derived from the patients’ records for a retrospective 12month period, before their most recent visit to the clinic. Calculations followed a third-party payer perspective, according to official prices and tariffs, and are expressed in year 2015 Euros.
Highlights
Despite the widely acknowledged progress of the last decades in the understanding and management of liver disease and the availability of both treatment as well as preventive alternatives, viral hepatitis remains a key public health issue [1]
It is estimated that 1.8% of the adult population – or 13.3 million persons - in the WHO–EURO Region suffer from chronic HBV [2]; approximately 36,000 persons die each year as a consequence of the disease, whereas a significant proportion of patients experience severe complications, such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma
Overall and for all patients included in the analysis, regardless of disease severity, the average annual cost per patient was estimated at 1,822.5 (s.d.: 2,236.5) and 886.7 (s.d.: 703.1.5) Euros including and excluding HBV medications, respectively
Summary
Despite the widely acknowledged progress of the last decades in the understanding and management of liver disease and the availability of both treatment as well as preventive alternatives, viral hepatitis remains a key public health (and health policy) issue [1]. It is estimated that 1.8% of the adult population – or 13.3 million persons - in the WHO–EURO Region suffer from chronic HBV [2]; approximately 36,000 persons die each year as a consequence of the disease, whereas a significant proportion of patients experience severe complications, such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The latter result to increases in the total burden of disease and, to a significant pressure on healthcare budgets. The last “series” of cost-of-illness papers in HBV, i.e. the type of analyses that are published today more frequently than ever in HCV, can be traced as back as 2004, whereas a paucity of data more or less remains ever since
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