Economic and Clinical Burden of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Episodes of Care in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis of a Commercial Payer Database

BACKGROUND: In the United States, the incidence of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has steadily increased over the last decade; in 2019, it was estimated that AML would affect 21,450 new patients and lead to 10,920 deaths. Detailed real-world cost estimates and comparisons of key AML treatment episodes, such as in high-intensity chemotherapy (HIC), low-intensity chemotherapy (LIC), hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), and relapsed/refractory (R/R), are scarce in the commercially insured U.S. population. OBJECTIVE: To examine health resource utilization (HRU), clinical burden, and direct health care costs across various AML treatment episodes in a large sample of commercially insured U.S. patients. METHODS: A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted. Patients with newly diagnosed AML were followed to identify the key active treatment episodes across the course of their disease. Data were obtained from 2 sources: IQVIA’s Real-World Data (RWD) Adjudicated Claims Database – U.S. (formerly known as PharMetrics Plus), which comprises adjudicated claims for more than 150 million unique enrollees across the United States, and IQVIA Charge Detail Master Hospital Database, which has detailed data regarding services received in an inpatient setting. Calculation of all-cause HRU was based on physician office visits, nonphysician office visits, emergency department visits, inpatient visits, and outpatient pharmacy utilization. Calculation of all-cause health care costs was based on total allowed costs and reported by the following cost components: physician office visits, nonphysician office visits, emergency department visits, inpatient visits, and outpatient pharmacy utilization. Symptom and toxicity events were estimated via proxies such as diagnosis codes, procedures, and treatments administered. RESULTS: The final study sample consisted of 1,542 HIC-induction (HIC-I), 591 HIC-consolidation (HIC-C), 628 LIC, 1,000 patients with HSCT, and 707 patients with R/R AML. Total mean episode costs were highest in R/R episodes ($439,104), followed by HSCT ($329,621), HIC-I ($198,657), HIC-C ($73,428), and LIC ($53,081) episodes. Across all treatment episodes, hospitalization was the largest contributor to cost with mean hospitalization costs ranging from $308,978 in the R/R setting to $49,580 for patients receiving LIC; of these, costs related to intensive care unit admission were a noteworthy contributor. In patients with R/R AML and HSCT, expenditures related to pharmacy utilization averaged $24,640 and $12,203, respectively, and expenditures related to physician office visits averaged $10,926 and $6,090, respectively; these expenditures were much lower across other episodes. Across all categories of symptom and toxicity events, cardiovascular events was the only category of event that was a significant predictor of higher cost across all episodes. Symptom and toxicity events commonly associated with AML were associated with significantly increased costs, especially in R/R episodes. CONCLUSIONS: This resource utilization and direct health care cost analysis highlights the substantial economic burden associated with key AML treatment episodes in the United States, specifically during HIC-I, HSCT, and R/R episodes.