Impact of noncompliance with urate-lowering drug on serum urate and gout-related healthcare costs: Administrative claims analysis
Halpern R et al. - Analysis revealed an important associations between allopurinol compliance, serum urate (sUA), and gout-related costs. However, these results should be interpreted carefully in the light of study limitations. Methods- Study to determine:
- Association between allopurinol compliance and sUA level, and
- Examine the association between sUA and gout-related healthcare costs in a large managed care population
- A retrospective administrative claims analysis examined subjects with gout between Jan 2002 – March 2004
- Each subject was observed during 1-yr pre-index and 1-yr post-index periods
Results- 18243 pts; mean age: 53.9 yrs
- 55% of subjects used allopurinol; 8.1% subjects with a post-allopurinol sUA and 13.4% with a baseline sUA result
- Among all subjects with a post-allopurinol sUA, 45.6% were compliant
- 49.3% to 56.8% of compliant subjects had an sUA<6.0mg/dL vs 22.5–27.8% of non-compliant subjects, depending on the post-allopurinol time period
- GLM results showed gout-related costs associated with baseline sUA≥6.0 and<9.0mg/dL were 58% higher than were costs for sUA<6.0mg/dL
- No difference in gout-related costs between baseline sUA<6.0mg/dL and ≥9.0mg/dL
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