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Impact of omalizumab on emergency-department visits, hospitalizations, and corticosteroid use among patients with uncontrolled asthma
Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, 06/28/2012
Clinical Article
Lafeuille MH et al. – The current analysis showed that omalizumab treatment initiation was associated with significant reductions in emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and corticosteroid use.
Methods- Health insurance claims from the MarketScan database (2002Q1–2009Q1) were analyzed.
- Patients with 12months or more of continuous insurance coverage before and after the first omalizumab dispensing, 8 or more weeks of high–dose ICS use, 8 or more weeks of LABA use, and uncontrolled asthma at baseline were included.
- A retrospective analysis was conducted to quantify the impact of omalizumab on resource use by comparing ED visits, hospitalizations, and corticosteroid use 1year before and after omalizumab initiation.
- A 1–year period was chosen to cover any potential seasonality impacts.
- In total, 644 patients (mean age, 49.9; female, 59.2%) formed the study population.
- Omalizumab was associated with a 48.6% reduction in the proportion of patients with 1 or more asthma–related ED visits (pre vs post–omalizumab period: 21.4% vs 11.0%; P<.001) and a 40.8% reduction in asthma–related hospitalizations (25.0% vs 14.8%, respectively, P<.001).
- Compared with the pre–omalizumab period, the use of ICS decreased significantly after omalizumab initiation (7.8 vs 6.5 dispensings, P<.001; 41.9% of patients had a reduction in ICS use).
- A similar reduction in oral corticosteroid use was observed (5.0 vs 3.6 dispensings, P<.001; 53.3% of patients had a reduction in oral corticosteroid use).
