Treatment adherence, healthcare resource utilization, and costs in patients with gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors (GI NETs).

Abstract

337 Background: This study aimed to assess treatment adherence, healthcare resource utilization and costs in patients with GI NETs who initiated pharmacologic treatments. Methods: In 2 US commercial claims databases, patients ≥18 years with ≥1 inpatient or ≥2 outpatient claims for GI NETs were identified. The first claim for pharmacologic treatments (e.g. somatostatin analogues [SSAs], cytotoxic chemotherapy [CC], targeted therapy) following diagnosis and between 7/1/2009 and 12/31/2013 was defined as the index date. A 6-month clean period before index date and a 6-month pre- and a ≥1-year post-index enrollment were required. Proportion of days covered (PDC) was calculated during the follow up period. Outcomes were reported separately for patients with 1 and 2 years of post-index enrollment. Descriptive statistics including means, standard deviations, and frequencies and percentages for continuous and categorical data, respectively, were reported. Results: Of 1,322 patients with 1-year of follow-up, 847 initiated SSAs, 397 CC, 35 targeted therapies, 2 interferon, and 41 various combinations. Due to sample sizes, remaining results focus only on SSAs and CC. Mean PDC (SD) was 0.669 (0.331) for SSAs and 0.466 (0.236) for CC; SSA users had 20.5 (13.5) office visits and 0.59 (1.03) hospitalizations, CC users had 30.5 (19.8) and 0.89 (1.45) office visits and hospitalizations respectively; total annual cost for SSA-treated patients during the 1st year was $99,691 (82,423) and $134,912 (116,078) for CC. Among 685 patients with 2 years of follow-up, the annual mean costs in the second year were $8,071 and $58,944 lower than the first year for SSAs and CC, respectively. Conclusions: In this descriptive non-comparative study, we reported the resource utilization and costs associated with different treatment therapies. Overall, costs were higher in the first year than in the second year. This 2-database study offers new information on the magnitude and trends in the cost of pharmacologically treated GI NETs. Additional research with a larger sample size would be needed to better understand real-world utilization and costs for GI NET patients treated with different pharmacological therapies.