OBJECTIVES: To identify an PAH patient cohort in an administrative database and evaluate hospital healthcare resource utilisation (HRU) and economic burden of illness in England for incident and prevalent patients.

METHODS: A retrospective database analysis was performed using the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database in England. An algorithm was developed to identify a PAH cohort. Extracted data (01.04.2012-31.03.2018) identified prevalent patients diagnosed (index date) after 2012 and alive on 1^st of June of each calendar year. Incident patients were identified as those with an index date 1 year after the start of the study period. HRU and economic costs were calculated for Accident & Emergency (A&E), inpatient and outpatient care.

RESULTS: Between 2013-2017, incidence ranged from 3.6-6.3/million population, while prevalence ranged from 31.1-32.3/million population.

In the first year after index, incident patients had a mean of 2.2 (SD=3.8) inpatient admissions, 5.4 (SD=7.7) outpatient visits and 0.5 (SD=0.9) A&E attendances, which was higher than the representative study population of prevalent patients shown in 2017 with 1.4 (SD=4.3), 5.0 (SD=7.4), and 0.4 (SD=1.0), respectively.

Of the incident patients, 69.2% had a second hospitalisation within 3 months of their first hospitalisation, whilst 94% of all inpatients admissions had a second inpatient hospitalisation within a year.

For PAH-related events, the mean cost per patient for inpatient admission was £4,703.63 (SD=£368.14), £1,731.11 (SD=£84.60) for outpatient visits and £1,802.58 (SD=£29.83) for A&E attendances for incident patients; which was higher than the representative study population of prevalent patients shown in 2017 with £3,135.11 (SD=£5,452.96), £144.56 (SD=£263.74) and £56.71 (SD=£155.01), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Incident PAH patients were identified to have a higher mean cost per event in their first year since index, in comparison to the representative study population of prevalent patients shown in 2017.