Large pharmacy databases offer insight into medication usage but are vulnerable to errors from sampling (since patients who receive samples will be considered to have poor adherence), misidentification of newly treated patients, and misclassification of added versus switched medications. That a large proportion of patients stop and restart medications makes MPR a robust measure of adherence over time that reflects the resumption of medication after a gap in adherence. The data confirm that adherence to treatment with glaucoma medications is poor, similar to adherence in patients with other chronic diseases.

IMPORTANCE To our knowledge, the current study is the first to describe antiepileptic drug (AED) combination therapy patterns according to their mechanism of action (MOA) in a real-world setting and to evaluate the differences in outcomes comparing different-MOA combination therapy with same-MOA combination therapy for patients with partial-onset seizure.OBJECTIVE To compare treatment persistence and health care use with AED combinations categorized by MOA in patients with partial-onset seizures. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Using the Truven Health MarketScan Commercial Claims Database containing 96 million covered lives from July 1, 2004, through March 31, 2011, adults with concomitant use of 2 different AEDs and a recent partial-onset seizure diagnosis were selected. Antiepileptic drugs were categorized by MOA: sodium channel blockers (SC), gamma-aminobutyric acid analogs (G), synaptic vesicle protein 2A binding (SV2), and multiple mechanisms (M). Patients were assigned a combination category based on their concomitant AED use. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Treatment persistence was measured from the start of AED combination therapy until the end of the combination. Health care resource use was measured during the combination treatment duration. Multivariate analyses evaluated AED discontinuation risk and health care use according to MOA combinations.RESULTS Distribution of 8615 selected patients by combination was 3.3% for G+G, 7.5% for G+SV2, 8.6% for G+M, 13.9% for SC+SC, 19.0% for G+SC, 21.5% for SC+M, and 26.3% for SC+SV2. The same-MOA (G+G and SC+SC) combinations had the shortest persistence (mean [SD], 344 [345] days and 513 [530] days, respectively) and greater hazard of discontinuation compared with different-MOA combinations. Patients with different-MOA G combinations had a significantly lower risk for inpatient admission (odds ratio, 0.716; 95% CI, 0.539-0.952; P = .02) compared with G+G combinations. Patients with different-MOA SC combinations had significantly lower risks for emergency department visits (odds ratio, 0.853; 95% CI, 0.742-0.980; P = .03) compared with SC+SC combinations. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThe findings suggest that AED combinations with different MOAs have greater effectiveness as measured by treatment persistence and lower risks for hospitalization and emergency department visits. Further research is needed to more fully understand the role of the MOA in achieving optimal outcomes.

Approximately 75% of the total PAD-related patient cost in an average of 25 months of follow-up is contributed by hospital costs, and 35% of patients newly diagnosed with PAD experienced a hospitalization in a mean of 8.9 months after the index diagnosis. Based upon mean annual health and member costs of only $313 PPPY for antihypertensives and $207 for lipid-lowering therapy, drug therapy in PAD patients may be underutilized.

The changes in health resource utilization and costs after initiation of pregabalin were not significantly different than the changes observed after initiation of duloxetine. These results not only demonstrate an overall similarity of resource utilization, but also suggest cost neutrality between pregabalin and duloxetine.

BackgroundThe goal of this research was to compare the demographics, clinical characteristics and treatment patterns for newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in a commercial managed care population who received disease-modifying drug (DMD) therapy versus those not receiving DMD therapy.MethodsA retrospective cohort study using US administrative healthcare claims identified individuals newly diagnosed with MS (no prior MS diagnosis 12 months prior using ICD-9-CM 340) and ≥ 18 years old during 2001-2007 to characterize them based on demographics, clinical characteristics, and pharmacologic therapy for one year prior to and a minimum of one year post-index. The index date was the first MS diagnosis occurring in the study period. Follow-up of subjects was done by ICD-9-CM code identification and not by actual chart review. Multivariate analyses were conducted to adjust for confounding variables.ResultsPatients were followed for an average of 35.7 ± 17.5 months after their index diagnosis. Forty-three percent (n = 4,462) of incident patients received treatment with at least one of the DMDs during the post-index period. Treated patients were primarily in the younger age categories of 18-44 years of age, with DMD therapy initiated an average of 5.3 ± 9.1 months after the index diagnosis. Once treatment was initiated, 27.7% discontinued DMD therapy after an average of 17.6 ± 14.6 months, and 16.5% had treatment gaps in excess of 60 days.ConclusionsNearly 60% of newly-diagnosed MS patients in this commercial managed care population remained untreated while over a quarter of treated patients stopped therapy and one-sixth experienced treatment gaps despite the risk of disease progression or a return of pre-treatment disease activity.