Healthcare Expenditures for the Treatment of Patients Infected with Hepatitis C Virus in Japan

Abstract

Aim: The recently developed direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are costly. Cost-effectiveness analyses of DAAs require accurate healthcare expenditure estimates for the various HCV disease states, but few studies have produced such estimates using national-level data. This study utilized nationally representative data to estimate the healthcare expenditure for each HCV disease state. Methods: We identified all patients infected with HCV between April 2010 and March 2018 from a nationwide administrative claims database in Japan. Monthly patient-level healthcare expenditures were calculated for the following disease states: chronic hepatitis C (CHC), compensated cirrhosis (CC), decompensated cirrhosis (DC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The expenditures for the CHC and CC states were also compared before DAA treatment and after sustained virologic response (SVR) was achieved. A longitudinal two-part model was employed to estimate the healthcare expenditures for each state. Results: During the study period, 1,564,043 patients with 146,488,137 patient-months of data met the inclusion criteria. The year of valuation was 2017. The mean monthly healthcare expenditures per patient (95% confidence intervals) for the pre-DAA CHC, CC, DC, and HCC states were US$267 (US$267–268), US$428 (US$427–429), US$666 (US$663–669), and US$969 (US$966–972), respectively. The mean monthly healthcare expenditures per patient for the post-SVR (≥ 2 years) CHC and CC states were US$176 (US$176–177) and US$238 (US$236–240), respectively. Healthcare expenditure increased with increasing age in all disease states (P < 0.05). Conclusions: These healthcare expenditure estimates from a nationally representative sample have potential applications in cost-effectiveness analyses of DAAs.