Costs of relapsed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma among Medicare patients

Abstract

While health care costs can be considerable in individuals with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the degree to which health care expenditures vary following first-line treatment for non-relapsed versus relapsed DLBCL is unknown. Using 100% Medicare claims, we identified beneficiaries with DLBCL treated with first-line therapy between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2014. We then compared health care expenditures of patients who received a second-line immunochemotherapy (relapse cohort) to those who did not begin a second-line therapy during follow-up (non-relapse cohort). After propensity score matching, the relapsed cohort incurred significantly higher health care costs ($6998 vs $3314 per month; p < .001), driven by inpatient ($2548 vs $1943 per month; p < .001) and outpatient office visit costs ($3581 vs $753 per month; p < .001). Our analysis confirms older adults with relapsed DLBCL incur higher medical costs and suggests improved first-line treatment would not only reduce the likelihood of relapse, but also contain health care costs.

Keywords:

• Costs
• diffuse large B-cell lymphoma
• relapse
• treatment patterns

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Neel Vaidya of STATinMED Research for medical writing and editorial support toward manuscript development. All authors had full access to the data and are fully responsible for content and editorial decisions for this manuscript.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10428194.2018.1459613.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Celgene Corporation, Summit, NJ, USA.