Short-term costs in patients with chronic kidney disease treated with dapagliflozin: a retrospective cohort study

Plain Language SummaryChronic kidney disease (CKD) is a condition in which the kidneys become progressively less effective at filtering blood. Patients with CKD also have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. Dapagliflozin is a drug that can be prescribed for adults with CKD to reduce the risk of CKD worsening, hospitalization for heart failure, and death from cardiovascular disease. Because the cost of medications could affect whether they are prescribed to patients who could benefit from them, our goal was to study the impact of dapagliflozin treatment on short-term costs for patients in the United States with CKD. We used health insurance claims data to compare medical costs (sum of costs for treatment during hospital admissions and outpatient and emergency department visits) and pharmacy costs over 6 months between patients with stage 3 CKD treated with dapagliflozin with those for a matching group of patients who were not treated with dapagliflozin. The dapagliflozin group had a lower average medical cost for cardiorenal causes (related to CKD, including hospitalization for heart failure) paid by health insurance than the non-dapagliflozin group; the average cardiorenal medical cost patients paid themselves (out-of-pocket) was also lower for the dapagliflozin group. The average medical cost for all causes paid by insurance was also lower for the dapagliflozin group; this reduction was larger than the increase in the average all-cause pharmacy cost in the dapagliflozin group. Our study showed that treatment with dapagliflozin can lead to medical cost savings for patients with CKD. ObjectivesThis real-world study evaluated the impact of dapagliflozin on short-term medical costs in patients with stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD).MethodsThis retrospective, observational cohort study used medical and pharmacy claims data from IQVIA PharMetrics Plus. Patients aged & GE;18 years with a filled dapagliflozin prescription after stage 3 CKD diagnosis between September 2020 and December 2021 were 1:1 propensity score matched with patients with stage 3 CKD who did not receive dapagliflozin. The primary endpoint was cardiorenal medical costs to payers over 6 months; all-cause medical and pharmacy costs were also analyzed. Within the overall population, there was a new-user subgroup of patients with no sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 use during baseline.ResultsThe new-user subgroup included 503 matched patients per cohort. Mean per-patient cardiorenal medical costs were reduced by 49.0% in the dapagliflozin versus non-dapagliflozin cohort ($3172.15 vs $6219.50; P < 0.001). Mean all-cause medical costs were reduced ($8043.58 vs $12,194.87; P < 0.001) and mean all-cause pharmacy costs were increased ($9056.98 vs $7453.23; P = 0.22). Results were similar for the overall population.ConclusionThis study showed dapagliflozin was associated with reduced cardiorenal medical costs over 6 months compared with no dapagliflozin treatment in patients with stage 3 CKD, demonstrating real-world medical cost savings.