High Costs Associated With Care of Triple Class Exposed Patients with MM

In a study, researchers sought to calculate healthcare costs associated with triple class exposure (TCE) to multiple myeloma (MM) treatments among patients in the United States. This study was published in Oncology and Therapy.

“MM is a malignancy of plasma cells; most MM patients will eventually relapse or become refractory to treatment,” wrote the study authors. “Treating MM patients remains a challenge since patients eventually progress through several lines of therapy, requiring the use of multiple MM drug classes.”

TCE was defined as exposure to a proteosome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent, and an anti-CD38 antibody. The investigators calculated healthcare resource utilization and costs associated with TCE among patients with MM, using data from the MarketScan commercial database and Medicare supplemental databases. Data were collected between January 2009 and February 2021. Patients were included in the study cohort if they were triple class exposed and had at least one line of therapy occurring after January 2017. Index dates were defined as the initiation of the first post-TCE line of therapy. The primary outcomes were all-cause and MM-related healthcare resource use, and costs occurring after the index date.

In total, 85 patients were analyzed. Patients were included if they had at least one year of follow-up post-index. The mean age at index was 58.8 years, and 60% of the cohort members were male.

The average time from MM diagnosis to index date was 47.5 months. Average post-index follow-up was 20.9 months. At follow-up, 55 patients (64.7%) had initiated a second line of therapy post-TCE, and 30 patients (35.2%) had initiated at least their third post-TCE therapeutic line.

According to the researchers, during follow-up the average total all-cause healthcare costs were $722,992 per patient, or $34,578 per patient per month [PPPM]). MM-related costs accounted for 90.7% of total all-cause healthcare costs, or $655,524 per patients. Two-thirds of MM-related costs were related to drugs or infusion costs.

In conclusion, the authors wrote, “In this real-world US study, MM patients with TCE incurred high healthcare costs, with the majority being MM related and primarily attributed to MM drug and infusion costs.”

Reference

Jagannath S, Joseph N, He J, et al. Healthcare Costs Incurred by Patients with Multiple Myeloma Following Triple Class Exposure (TCE) in the US. Oncol Ther. 2021 Dec;9(2):659-669.