208 The burden of alopecia areata (AA) vs psoriasis (PsO) in the United States

Abstract

The well-established disease burden of PsO can provide a benchmark for understanding the disease burden of other immune-mediated dermatologic disorders that may be associated with high health care resource utilization (HCRU), such as AA. The objective was to describe the economic burden of patients with AA vs PsO aged ≥12 years. A retrospective analysis using IBM MarketScan Commercial & Medicare databases was conducted to identify patients aged ≥12 years with ≥2 claims of either AA (ICD-10-CM: L63.x) or PsO (ICD-10-CM: L40.x) recorded between 1 Jan 2016–31 Dec 2019. The date of first recorded diagnosis for either AA or PsO (patients with both were excluded) was the index date, with ≥12 months continuous enrollment before and after the index date. Demographic and clinical characteristics were used to propensity match AA patients to PsO patients using a 1:2 ratio. Descriptive analyses were performed with the matched cohorts for demographic and clinical characteristics, treatment, and healthcare resource use in the pre-index period. Annualized mean all-cause costs were compared in both groups in the post-index period. The matched analysis included 17,081 and 33,687 patients with AA and PsO, respectively. Mean age was 40.8 and 41.3 years and females comprised 61.6% and 63.6% of patients, respectively. Mean (SD) medical costs during the post-index period were $7,457 ($31,992) and $10,310 ($33,392), respectively (standardized difference [stdiff]: 0.09). Mean (SD) pharmacy costs were $2,470 ($8,851) and $11,421 ($23,746) in the post-index period, respectively (stdiff: 0.5). This analysis of patients with matched demographic and clinical characteristics demonstrated the substantial economic burden of AA, with medical costs approaching those of PsO. Differences observed in pharmacy costs may be due to the lack of approved therapies for AA. As treatment options for AA are developed, it will be important to continue evaluating the impact of effective therapies on cost burden.