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Locally advanced BCC rare in general BCC population
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Locally advanced basal cell carcinoma was rare in patients with basal cell carcinoma, according to recently published study results.
Researchers used Truven Health MarketScan database insurance claims to conduct a retrospective cohort study of patients aged 18 years and older with at least two claims of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) between Oct. 1, 2011, and Sept. 30, 2012.
The database represented a commercially insured U.S. population, representing all census regions.
Patients were characterized as having incident or prevalent BCC, based on the absence or presence, respectively, of a claim of nonmelanoma skin cancer in the period of year before the BCC index date.
There were 56,987 patients with BCC (mean age, 64.9 years; 57.6% male) identified, and the patients had continuous medical and pharmacy benefits during the 12-month before and after index date. Of the patients, 68.5% were incident cases and 31.5% were prevalent cases.
The prevalent cases included an older population and higher male proportion of patients (P < .0001, both), compared with the incident cases.
There was an age-adjusted incident rate of 226.09 per 100,000 persons, which projected 542,782 patients. The age-adjusted prevalence rate was 342.64 per 100,000 persons, which projected to 822,593 patients.
There were 471 cases of locally advanced BCC, with an age-adjusted incidence rate of 1.83 per 100,000, projecting to 4,399 cases, and an age-adjusted prevalence rate of 3.31 per 100,000, project to 7,940 in the U.S.
“Our study was … designed to distinguish patients with [locally advanced] BCC and [metastatic] BCC from the general BCC population based on BCC-specific ICD-9-CM codes; [locally advanced] BCC accounted for 0.8% of all BCC cases and [metastatic] BCC was exceedingly rare at 0.04% of the BCC cohort,” the researchers wrote. “Nevertheless, it is an important health concern given the high incidence and prevalence of BCC and likely contributes disproportionately to the health burden of BCC.” – by Bruce Thiel
Disclosure: Goldenberg reports serving as a consultant to Genentech, Novartis and Xoft and as a speaker for Genentech and Novartis. Please see the full study for other researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.
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