Profiles and Disease Burden of Patients with COPD Initiating Triple Therapy in China

To describe the patient profile and disease burden for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in China who initiated triple therapy.

This retrospective, observational cohort study used real-world data from the Tianjin database to identify patients with COPD who initiated triple therapy between 1 January 2019 and 30 June 2023. Index date was the first prescription for single-inhaler triple therapy (SITT; fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol or budesonide/glycopyrronium/formoterol fumarate) or multiple-inhaler triple therapy (MITT). Patient demographics, clinical characteristics, baseline medications, healthcare resource utilisation and costs were described.

In total, 7871 patients were included; 3582 received MITT and 4289 received SITT. In the overall population, the mean age was 65.8 years and 64.8% of patients were male. Most patients were non-smokers (95.6%) and had a visit to a Tier 3 hospital at index (89.8%). Hypertension (36.8%) and asthma (33.0%) were the most common comorbidities at index. Inhaled corticosteroid/long-acting β2-agonist (19.3%) was the most used treatment prior to initiating triple therapy. The median (interquartile range) number of COPD-related emergency department visits, inpatient admissions and outpatient admissions in the year prior to and including the index date was 1 (1), 1 (0) and 3 (5), respectively. The median COPD-related total direct medical costs were 2068 Renminbi per patient. The mean proportion of days covered (PDC) for baseline medications was 0.35. The median eosinophil count was 120 cells/μL.

These results provide an overview of the profiles of patients with COPD in China. The high rates of COPD-related healthcare resource utilization and costs demonstrate the considerable burden of COPD in China, whilst the PDC results indicate medication adherence needs to be improved. These findings could help reduce the burden of COPD in China by supporting the planning and adjustment of patients' treatment strategies.