PCN116 HEALTHCARE RESOURCE UTILIZATION AND COSTS OF METASTATIC HEAD AND NECK CANCER PATIENTS IN A U.S. CLAIMS DATABASE FROM 2014 TO 2018

Abstract

To describe all-cause and cancer-related healthcare resource utilization and costs of pharmacy and medical services recorded in the Truven MarketScan® database from January 1, 2014 until September 30, 2018, and estimate the average cost of one unit or episode of selected medical services. A retrospective cohort design was used. Patients who had qualifying diagnoses of head and neck cancer and metastatic cancer, and continuous enrollment for 12 months prior and 1 month following, were included. Patients were stratified by length of follow-up. Demographic information, healthcare resource utilization, and costs (total, payer, and patient) were reported descriptively. 1,483 patients with metastatic head and neck cancer were included in this analysis with a median follow-up of 7.36 months. In the sub-population analysis of patients with newly diagnosed metastatic head and neck cancer and up to 15 months of follow-up (N=976), the most common all-cause resources used during the follow-up period were office/clinic visits (931 patients, 95%), outpatient hospital visits (958, 98%), and inpatient hospital visits (573, 59%). Furthermore, in this sub-population, all-cause median costs for all settings in the follow-up were as follows: $16,712.67/month total payment, $368.97/month paid by patient, and $16,291.23/month paid by payer. Finally, the average all-cause visit unit cost total payment in the follow-up of the most commonly used resources were $508.45 for office/clinic, and $2,812.49 for outpatient hospital. With the advent of immuno-oncologic (I-O) agents, treatment options available to patients for recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck have expanded. There have been few evaluations of changes in economic burden since I-O availability. This study provides additional evidence to inform healthcare resource utilization and costs in patients with metastatic head and neck cancer.