Healthcare Resource Utilization and Associated Costs in Patients With Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease...

Limited evidence suggests chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) increases healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs. However, this burden has not been well characterized in England. This study assesses secondary care HCRU and costs for patients following allo HSCT in England with cGvHD and patients who did not develop graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Further stratification was performed among patients who did or did not subsequently receive high-cost therapies for the treatment of cGvHD. This descriptive, retrospective cohort study used Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data from April 2017 to March 2022. HES data captures information on reimbursed diagnoses and procedures from all National Health Service (NHS) secondary care admissions and attendances in England. High-cost drugs as defined by NHS England are recorded in HES, these drugs and other procedures including plasma exchange, were used to identify patients with cGvHD who were in receipt of high-cost therapies. HCRU and costs were described for patients with cGvHD following allo-HSCT (n = 721) and were matched with patients with no evidence of GvHD following allo-HSCT (n = 718). HCRU and costs were also described for the subset of patients with cGvHD (n = 198) following receipt of high-cost therapies and patients with cGvHD prior to or without such therapies (n = 523). A higher proportion of patients with cGvHD had at least one inpatient or intensive care unit (ICU) admission or emergency care attendance than patients without GvHD (inpatient: 74.6% versus 66.6%; emergency care: 39.3% versus 30.5%; ICU: 7.4% versus 4.7%; respectively); whilst the proportion of patients with an outpatient attendance were similar for both groups (outpatient: 80.3% versus 84.1%; respectively). The cost across all secondary care settings was higher for patients with cGvHD than patients without GvHD, with a mean cost of inpatient admissions of £17,339 per patient-year for those with cGvHD versus £8548 per patient-year in patients without GvHD. A higher proportion of patients who received high-cost therapies for the treatment of cGvHD had at least one secondary care admission or attendance, than patients who did not (inpatient: 85.4% versus 66.4%; ICU: 7.1% versus 5.4%; outpatient: 87.9% versus 76.7%; emergency care: 44.4% versus 36.5%; respectively). Patients who were treated with high-cost therapies for the treatment of cGvHD had a greater mean number (14.6 versus 8.2 per patient-year, respectively) for all-cause inpatient admissions after treatment than patients who did not. In all secondary care settings, the total cost per patient-year was higher for patients who received high-cost therapies for the treatment of cGvHD, than for those who did not. Patients who were treated with high-cost therapies for the treatment of cGvHD had a greater mean cost (£21,137 versus £15,956 per patient-year, respectively) for all-cause inpatient admissions than patients who did not. This study demonstrates that cGvHD and the use of associated high-cost therapies impacts healthcare activity and costs across various secondary care settings in England more than patients without GvHD and patients with cGvHD who received no high-cost therapies.