Abstract
Objective
To compare health care resource utilization and treatment patterns between patients with actinic keratosis (AK) treated with ingenol mebutate gel (IngMeb) and those treated with other field-directed AK therapies.
Methods
A retrospective, propensity-score–matched, cohort study compared refill/repeat and adding-on/switching patterns and outpatient visits and prescriptions (health care resource utilization) over 6 months in patients receiving IngMeb versus those receiving imiquimod, 5-fluorouracil, diclofenac sodium, and methyl aminolevulinate or aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (MAL/ALA-PDT).
Results
The final sample analyzed included four matched treatment cohort pairs (IngMeb and comparator; n = 790–971 per treatment arm). Refill rates were similar except for imiquimod (15% vs. 9% for imiquimod and IngMeb, respectively; P 0.0001). There were significantly fewer AK-related prescriptions among patients receiving IngMeb than among patients in other cohorts.
Conclusions
Results based on the first 6 months after treatment initiation suggested that most field-directed AK therapies had clinically comparable treatment patterns except imiquimod, which was associated with higher refill rates, and PDT, which was associated with significantly more frequent treatment sessions and higher switching rates. IngMeb was also associated with significantly fewer outpatient visits than were other field-directed therapies.
Authors
Carl V. Asche Panagiotis Zografos Jenny M. Norlin Bill Urbanek Carl Mamay Charles Makin Sandra Erntoft Chi-Chang Chen Dionne M. Hines Daniel Mark Siegel