Clinical and economic burden of peripheral T-cell lymphoma in commercially insured patients in the United States: findings using real-world claims data

Objective: This retrospective cohort study utilized real-world claims data to assess the clinical and economic burden of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) over the continuum of care in the US. Methods: Data were extracted from US administrative claims databases to identify adult patients with PTCL (ICD-9-CM code 202.7X) diagnosed between October 2007 and June 2011. Patients had to have ≥6 months of continuous enrollment before and ≥12 months of continuous enrollment after their index date (date of first PTCL diagnosis). PTCL patients were matched (1:5) by age, sex, region, plan type, payer type, and length of continuous enrollment, to a control group of randomly selected patients without PTCL. Patient-level healthcare resource utilization data and associated costs (in US dollars) were measured. Mean costs per patient per month were determined. Results: Of 2820 patients with PTCL, 1000 met all inclusion criteria (median age = 57 years; 57.5% male) and were matched to the control group (n = 5000). On an average monthly basis, PTCL patients were hospitalized more frequently (0.07 vs 0.01 admissions; p < 0.0001) and had a longer length of hospital stay (6.4 vs 4.0 days; p < 0.0001) compared with controls. PTCL patients also had higher monthly utilization of pharmacy services (2.85 vs 0.97 prescriptions; p < 0.0001), office visits (1.35 vs 0.34 visits; p < 0.0001), ER visits (0.07 vs 0.02 visits; p < 0.0001), hospice stays (0.05 vs 0.01 stays; p < 0.0001) and other patient services/procedures. Overall, PTCL patients incurred higher average monthly costs per patient compared with control patients ($6327.84 vs $388.39; p < 0.0001), driven mainly by hospitalizations (32.2% of overall costs) and pharmacy services (19.6%). Conclusions: This is the first real-world study to quantify healthcare resource utilization, costly treatment, and overall medical expenditure in commercially insured PTCL patients. Better tolerated and more effective treatments may improve disease management and reduce the clinical and economic burden of PTCL.