Cancer increases cost of care for CDI by nearly $60,000
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Patients with Clostridioides difficile infection who also have cancer spent more than 20 days longer in the hospital on average than those without Clostridioides difficile infection, according to a retrospective analysis in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. This resulted in an average of nearly $60,000 more in the cost of care.
“We know Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) results in a very high burden for patients; we wanted to evaluate the burden in the specific category of patients with hematologic malignancies,” Pierre-Alain Bandinelli, chief operating officer and chief business officer of DaVolterra, told Healio. “This is particularly important as the burden of each disease may vary strongly from one patient group to another. It is important to conduct research in specific patient groups to highlight the possible specificities of these groups.”
Bandinelli and colleagues performed a retrospective analysis using data from Truven Health Analytics to determine direct health care costs associated with CDI both in and out of the hospital among patients with hematologic malignancies in the United States. The researchers examined health insurance claims from January 2014 to December 2017 among patients diagnosed with hematologic malignancies. Patients with CDI following a cancer diagnosis were matched to patients with cancer but no CDI and the groups compared to identify CDI-related costs in the 90 days following CDI onset.
The researchers matched 622 CDI-positive patients with 11,111 CDI-negative patients. The most prevalent underlying diseases in the CDI-positive groups included Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (41.7%) and acute myeloid leukemia (30.9%). Average time in the hospital for CDI-positive patients was 23.1 days longer than that for CDI-negative patients, leading to an average increased cost of care of $57,159 per patient, which researchers say was driven primarily by hospital costs.
“Just like in other patient populations, CDI is pretty expensive, but it was almost one order of magnitude higher in this specific patient group,” Bandinelli said.
CDI results in long-lasting and profound consequences for patients and health care organizations, Bandinelli added. As a result, “interventions to detect, prevent and treat CDI promptly seem justified.” – by Caitlyn Stulpin
Disclosures: Bandinelli is an employee of DaVolterra and may own or hold stock in the company. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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