Andrea Ciaccia

A Real-World Analysis of the Population with Hepatitis C Virus Infection Affected by Type 2 Diabetes in Italy: Patients’ Characteristics, Comorbidity Profiles and Treatment Patterns

Background and Objectives: HCV infection represents a main risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D). This real-world analysis investigated the HCV-positive (HCV+) population with a T2D co-diagnosis in Italy. Methods: From 2017 to 2021, HCV+ patients were identified from administrative databases and stratified into T2D-HCV+ and HCV+-only cohorts in the presence/absence of a T2D diagnosis. Both cohorts were further divided by treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). The subgroups were compared for demographic variables, comorbidity profiles, most frequent hospitalizations, and drug prescriptions before inclusion. A sensitivity analysis was performed on patients included after 2019, the year of widespread use of pangenotypic DAAs. Results: Considering HCV+ patients aged ≥55 years, T2D-HCV+ patients (N = 1277) were significantly (p < 0.001) older than HCV+-only (N = 6576) ones and burdened by a worse comorbidity profile (average Charlson index: 1.4 vs. 0.3, p < 0.05). Moreover, regardless of T2D presence, DAA-treated patients were older (p < 0.001) and had a worse Charlson index than the untreated ones. T2D-HCV+ patients showed tendentially higher hospitalization rates and co-medication prescriptions compared to the HCV+-only patients. After 2019, a trend towards reduced co-medication use in DAA-treated patients was noticed, especially antibiotics and cardiovascular drugs. Conclusions: The co-presence of T2D in HCV+ patients resulted in a worse clinical status, as confirmed by the more frequent requirement of hospitalizations and complex polypharmacy regimens

Profile, Healthcare Resource Consumption and Related Costs in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis Patients: a Real-World Analysis in Italy

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitides (AAV) are rare autoimmune diseases triggeringinflammation of small vessels. This real-world analysis was focused on the most common AAV forms, granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), to describe patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics,therapeutic management, disease progression, and the related economic burden. A retrospective analysis was conducted on administrative… Read More »Profile, Healthcare Resource Consumption and Related Costs in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis Patients: a Real-World Analysis in Italy

Characteristics and drug utilization of patients with hereditary angioedema in Italy, a real world-analysis

This real-world analysis investigated the characteristics and treatment patterns of patientswith hereditary angioedema (HAE) in Italy using the administrative data of health units across Italy.Patients were identified via exemption code or HAE-specific treatments (thus, all known forms, typeI, II and, III, were included). The index date was that of first prescription of HAE treatments withinthe… Read More »Characteristics and drug utilization of patients with hereditary angioedema in Italy, a real world-analysis

doctor holding red stethoscope

Healthcare Resource Consumption and Related Costs in Patients on Antiretroviral Therapies: Findings from Real-World Data in Italy

This real-world analysis conducted on administrative databases of a sample of Italian healthcare entities was aimed at describing the role of therapeutic pathways and drug utilization in terms of adherence, persistence, and therapy discontinuation in HIV-infected patients under antiretroviral therapies (ART) and Tenofovir Alafenamide (TAF)-based regimens on healthcare resource consumption and related direct healthcare costs. Between 2015 and 2019, adults (≥18 years) prescribed with TAF-based therapies were identified and characterized in the year prior to the first prescription (index-date) for TAF-based therapies and followed-up until the end of data availability. Overall, 2658 ART-treated patients were included, 1198 of which were under a TAF-based regimen. TAF-based therapies were associated with elevated percentages of adherence (83.3% patients with proportion of days covered, PDC > 95% and 90.6% with PDC > 85%) and persistence (78.5%). The discontinuation rate was low in TAF-treated patients, ranging from 3.3% in TAF-switchers to 5% in naïve. Persistent patients had lower overall mean annual healthcare expenditures (EUR 11,106 in persistent vs. EUR 12,380 in non-persistent, p = 0.005), and this trend was statistically significant also for costs related to HIV hospitalizations. These findings suggest that a better therapeutic management of HIV infection might result in positive clinical and economic outcomes.