Estimation of the Economic Burden Associated with Major Surgery Due to Von Willebrand Disease Based on Claims Data from the USA

Background: von Willebrand disease (VWD), a rare, inherited bleeding disorder, is associated with impaired hemostasis resulting from a quantitative or qualitative deficit in von Willebrand factor. Limited information exists on the economic burden associated with major surgeries in this patient population, and real-world data may help determine the impact of these procedures.

Aims: To estimate the incremental economic burden associated with major surgeries in patients with VWD compared with patients without VWD who had similar types of surgery.

Methods: Accessing data from the Truven US health care database (January 2008 to December 2018), we analyzed data from patients with VWD (based on ≥2 diagnoses from different hospital admissions/physician visits, excluding laboratory and radiology orders) and patients without VWD who had undergone a major surgical procedure. The surgical procedure was defined as a medical claim associated with a major therapeutic operating room procedure (International Classification of Diseases, 9th/10th revision codes) or a major procedure (Current Procedural Terminology code). For patients with VWD, the surgical procedure had to have occurred on or after their first VWD diagnosis. Patients without VWD who had undergone major surgeries were selected from a 1% random sample of the Truven database. Patients from both groups (ie, VWD and non-VWD) were included in the study if they had continuous health care plan enrollment ≥12 months prior to (baseline period) and ≥12 months following (study period) their first major surgery, no diagnosis of acquired coagulation factor deficiency, and not undergone surgery used to reduce bleeding associated with VWD (ie, uterine ablation, nasal ablation, or hysterectomy). Patients with VWD were matched (1:1) with patients without VWD using propensity score matching. Health care resource utilization (HCRU: inpatient [IP] admission, emergency room [ER] visits, and outpatient [OP] visits) and associated costs (pharmacy or medical; adjusted to 2018 US dollars [USD] using the medical component of the Consumer Price Index) were measured over the 12-month study period. Adjusted analyses controlling for age, sex, region, health plan, index year, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), comorbidity profile (anemia, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and obesity), and baseline HCRU were conducted using generalized linear regression models.

Results: After propensity score matching, 2972 patients with VWD and 2972 patients without VWD who had ≥1 major surgery were selected for analysis (mean [SD] age, 40.53 [20.56] and 40.94 [20.33] years, respectively; female, 73.3% and 73.6%, respectively). Mean (SD) CCI was 0.66 (1.26) and 0.64 (1.30), respectively; and anemia, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and obesity were present in a similar proportion of each group (7−18% of patients with or without VWD). The most common major surgeries were musculoskeletal or digestive in patients with or without VWD (39.6% and 25.0% vs 37.1% and 23.4%, respectively).

Patients with VWD were significantly (P<0.0001) more likely to have an IP admission (odds ratio [OR], 1.71; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.52−1.92) or ER visit (OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.25−1.59) than patients without VWD. They also had significantly (P<0.0001) more frequent IP admissions (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.47; 95% CI, 1.35−1.60), ER visits (IRR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.31−1.59), and OP visits (IRR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.11−1.21) than patients without VWD. Patients with VWD incurred significantly (P<0.0001) higher total health care costs than patients without VWD ($50,733.89 USD vs $30,154.84 USD). The majority of costs were medical: $41,943.22 USD in patients with VWD and $26,233.83 USD in patients without VWD.

Conclusions: In this large retrospective analysis of a US commercial health care database, patients with VWD incurred significantly higher HCRU and associated costs following major surgeries compared with patients without VWD who had similar surgeries.