Healthcare resource utilization and associated cost of patients with bone metastases from solid tumors who are naïve to bone-targeting agents: a comparative analysis of patients with and without skeletal-related events

Background This study analyzes the impact of skeletal-related events (SRE) on healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs incurred by patients with bone metastases (BM) from solid tumors (ST), who are therapy-naïve to bone targeting agents (BTAs). Methods German claims data from 01/01/2010 to 30/06/2018 were used to conduct a retrospective comparative cohort analysis of BTA-naive patients with a BM diagnosis and preceding ST diagnosis. HCRU and treatment-related costs were compared in two matched cohorts of patients with and without a history of SREs, defined as pathological fracture, spinal cord compression, surgery to bone and radiation to bone. The first SRE was defined as the patient-individual index date. Conversely, for the non-SRE patients, index dates were assigned randomly. Results In total, 45.20% of 9,832 patients reported experiencing at least one SRE ( n = 4444) while 54.80% experienced none ( n = 5388); 2,434 pairs of SRE and non-SRE patients were finally matched (mean age: 70.87/71.07 years; females: 39.07%/38.58%). Between SRE and non-SRE cohorts, significant differences in the average number of hospitalization days per patient-year (35.80/30.80) and associated inpatient-care costs (14,199.27€/10,787.31€) were observed. The total cost ratio was 1.16 ( p