Do Characteristics of Patients Influencing the Choice of Pain Treatment by GPS Differ in Osteoarthritis and Cancer? – An Italian Real World Evidence Study

Abstract

To understand whether patients’ features underneath the choice of pain treatments by Italian GPs differ between osteoarthritis and cancer. Retrospective analysis on Real World Data from IMS Health Italian Longitudinal Patient Database. For both osteoarthritis and cancer, three cohorts of patients have been identified based on anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic (M01) and analgesic (N02) drugs prescriptions recorded during 2016: a) patients receiving a treatment with M01 drugs and not having N02 prescriptions, b) patients receiving a treatment with N02 and not having M01 prescriptions, c) patients treated with both M01 and N02 drugs. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square and t-tests were used to compare demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients in the three cohorts for osteoarthritis and cancer. Patients receiving a treatment with M01 drugs were 32,238 (70%) and 2,496 (31%) for osteoarthritis and cancer, respectively. Patients receiving a treatment with N02 were 8,569 (19%) and 4,450 (55%) for osteoarthritis and cancer, respectively. Patients treated with both M01 and N02 drugs were 5,026 (11%) and 1,107 (14%) for osteoarthritis and cancer, respectively. In osteoarthritis, the highest proportion of men was observed among patients treated with M01 only (33% versus 25% and 25%), while in cancer, higher proportions of men were observed among patients treated with N02 and among those treated with both M01 and N02 (46% and 47% versus 41%). For osteoarthritis, as well as for cancer, the oldest patients were those treated with N02 only, with a mean age of 77 and 71 years, respectively. Both in osteoarthritis and in cancer, patients treated with N02 only and with both N02 and M01 had a more impaired health status. All the comparisons were statistically significant. Despite all the considered patients’ features seem to be correlated with treatment choice, only gender shows opposite effects when comparing osteoarthritis and cancer.