Abstract
Myelofibrosis (MF), polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET) may lead to bone marrow fibrosis. Because the disease course of ET and PV are long and the disease course of MF may be fatal, healthcare resource utilization (HRU) associated costs of these neoplasms are especially important to understand. We used a large US health insurance claim database to describe the costs of these diseases. Compared to age–gender matched comparisons without myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), all aspects of HRU that we examined, including inpatient, outpatient and emergency room visits and pharmacy, as well as overall healthcare expenditures, were significantly higher in patients with MF, PV and ET (e.g. MF total costs = $54 168 vs. $10 203; PV = $14 903 vs. $7913; ET = $29 553 vs. $8026) than in matched comparisons. In order to reduce the burden of illness associated with these diseases, continued efforts in the development of more efficacious treatments for these disorders are needed.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by Sanofi.
Potential conflict of interest
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