U.S. trends of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor use from 2017–2023: An analysis of medicare, medicaid, and commercial insurance

Abstract

Purpose Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor medications are a cornerstone in the treatment of many macular diseases in modern ophthalmology. These medications accrue significant economic burdens to individuals and health systems, and recent data on health-system level practice patterns involving agent selection is lacking. We sought to examine utilization of intravitreal anti–VEGF agents from 2017 to 2023 across various payors and diagnoses in the United States in order to analyze trends in usage. Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed. Data were obtained from the Epic Cosmos database, comprised of de-identified data from the electronic health record, Epic, of 238 million patients from all 50 states from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2023. Encounters where a patient received an intravitreal injection in an ophthalmology clinic were categorized by intravitreal medication ordered, visit diagnosis, and primary insurance payor. The overall usage rates of each medication across different diagnoses and primary payor were compared. Total number of injections per year of anti-VEGF medication, the rate per 100000 ophthalmology encounters (OE), and the rate in different retinal conditions and with various insurance providers were the main outcome measures. Results From 2017–2023, there were 571,545 anti-VEGF injections administered, with 53.6% aflibercept 2 mg (306,247/571,545; 625.8/000 OE), 34.8% bevacizumab 1.25 mg (198,696/571,545; 414.7/100000 OE), 7.83% ranibizumab 0.3 mg and 0.5 mg (44,803/571,545; 99.2/100000 OE), and 3.43% faricimab 6 mg (19,624/571,545; 32.8/100000 OE). Brolucizumab 6 mg, ranibizumab-eqrn 0.5 mg, ranibizumab-nuna 0.5 mg, and aflibercept 8 mg accounted for <1% of all injections. From 2017–2023, the rate of aflibercept 2 mg increased from 361.3 injections/100000 OE to 913.1, bevacizumab increased from 274.1 to 538.1, and ranibizumab decreased from 92.4 to 64.0. The rate of faricimab increased from 37.9/100000 OE to 189.9 from 2022–2023. Patients with Medicare received aflibercept 2 mg at higher rates than bevacizumab (364.3/100000 OE vs 187.1, respectively) [t(6) = 5.67, p=0.001] and faricimab (19.4/100000 OE), a pattern not seen in commercially insured [t(6)=2.07, p>0.05] patients. Medicaid patients had a marginally significant difference in use of bevacizumab (M=19.9/100000 OE, SD=7.32) and aflibercept 2 mg (16.1/100000 OE, SD=7.22) [t(6)]=2.95, p=0.026]. Conclusions Aflibercept 2 mg was the most common drug used overall from 2017–2023. Faricimab had the highest absolute and relative increase in utilization from 2022–2023. Patients with Medicare B or C were significantly more likely to receive aflibercept over bevacizumab.