Cost analysis of type 2 diabetes mellitus treatment in economically developed countries

ABSTRACT

Introduction: There is a growing need to evaluate the factors contributing to the increase in health expenditures, as well as the cost of medicines used in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the economically developed countries.

Areas covered: A systematic searching of studies describing the direct cost of T2DM and medicine cost of treating T2DM. The quality of the studies found eligible for this study were assessed using a methodological quality appraisal tool. Nine studies were included in this review. All the included studies had data on direct cost and antidiabetic medicine cost of health care. Mean annual direct cost per person/year ranged between US$220 and US$7600. The two components with the greatest impact on direct cost were found to be medicines and hospitalization. The mean annual medicines cost per person/year was found to range between US$140 and US$2990.

Expert commentary: There is an increased expenditure on treatment of T2DM. However, it is still not clear how the increased use of antidiabetic medicines is reflected in the overall expenditures. Further, we suggest a more comprehensive understanding of prescription patterns as older drugs are more expensive than the newer drugs, hence they are still under patent.

KEYWORDS:

• Type 2 diabetes mellitus
• type 2 diabetes
• economics
• health care costs
• cost
• drugs
• health expenditure
• medicines
• chronic disease

Author Contributions

SR contributed to the study concept, design, analysis, interpretation and drafting manuscript. PT contributed to the study concept and interpretation. SS contributed to data interpretation and manuscript development. Z-U-D contributed to the study concept, design, analysis, interpretation and editing of the paper.

Declaration of Interest

S Ramzan is a PhD student at University of Huddersfield. The PhD is funded by University of Huddersfield.The University does not have influence on outcomes of this study. 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.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.