Healthcare resource utilization in patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in the United States

ABSTRACT

Objectives

To summarize healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) in patients with newly diagnosed (incident) paroxysmal or persistent atrial fibrillation (AF).

Methods

This retrospective, observational cohort study assessed HCRU among patients with incident paroxysmal or persistent AF using data from 1 January 2015 to 30 September 2019 in the IBM MarketScan® Research Databases.

Results

A total of 50,796 patients were identified in the overall incident AF cohort. Rates of all-cause inpatient hospital stays, all-cause emergency room visits, and all-cause outpatient visits in the overall incident cohort were 46.8, 114.7, and 2,752.7 events per 100 patient-years (PY), respectively. Rates of cardiovascular-related inpatient stays for the overall population were 11.3 events per 100 PY. During follow-up, 50.4% of the overall cohort filled prescriptions for direct-acting oral anticoagulants and 5.0% had catheter ablation.

Conclusions

Advances in anticoagulation and ablation have been realized since previously published HCRU analyses of patients with atrial fibrillation. This update suggests that HCRU among patients with incident AF in the US remains high with some subgroups of patients receiving more specialized care.

KEYWORDS:

• Atrial fibrillation: antiarrhythmic drugs
• dronedarone
• first-line antiarrhythmics
• healthcare resource utilization

Acknowledgments

Medical writing and editorial support was provided by Brooke Middlebrook, and Meenakshi Subramanian, Evidence Medical Affairs (Philadelphia, PA, USA) and was funded by Sanofi US Inc.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the concept and design of the analysis, interpretation of the data, drafting/reviewing this paper, and confirming accuracy, and approved the final manuscript for publication.

Data Availability Statement

Qualified researchers may request access to patient level data and related study documents including the clinical study report, study protocol with any amendments, blank case report form, statistical analysis plan, and dataset specifications. Patient level data will be anonymized, and study documents will be redacted to protect the privacy of our trial participants. Further details on Sanofi’s data sharing criteria, eligible studies, and process for requesting access can be found at https://www.clinicalstudydatarequest.com/.

Declaration of interest

A Cockerham, D McKindley, and C Ronk are employees of Sanofi and hold share and/or stock options in the company. S Huse is an employee of Evidera. M Kim reports consulting support from Sanofi. E Zeitler reports travel and speaking support from Medtronic, travel support from Abbott, and consulting support from Sanofi. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Sanofi. Support included analytic and writing support.