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Trends in incidence and medical resource utilisation in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: insights from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)

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Abstract

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is the most common leukaemia in European adults. We aimed to evaluate time trends in CLL incidence and medical resource utilisation of CLL patients in the UK. We conducted a retrospective, observational cohort analysis using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) comprising mainly primary care data. We included adult patients with newly diagnosed CLL between January 2000 and June 2012. Descriptive and trend analyses of CLL incidence and medical resource utilisation were performed. A total of 2576 patients with CLL met the eligibility criteria. At diagnosis, the majority of patients (71.7 %) were above 65 years of age. The European age-standardised CLL incidence rate in the CPRD was 6.2/100,000 (95 % confidence interval [CI] 6.0, 6.5/100,000) person-years. There was no statistically significant increase over time. The CLL patients had on average 74.6 general practitioner visits during a median follow-up of 3.3 years. Between 2000 and 2012, the average number of recorded hospitalisations and referrals per year corrected for duration of follow-up significantly (p < 0.001) increased by 8.1 % (95 % CI 6.8 %, 9.3 %) and 16.4 % (95 % CI 15.4 %, 17.3 %), respectively. Referrals and hospitalisations in the second year compared to the first year following the CLL diagnosis significantly decreased. CLL incidence rates in the CPRD were stable over the period from 2000 to 2012. Medical resource utilisation in UK primary care was well documented, but further research is needed to describe secondary and tertiary care medical resource utilisation e.g. chemotherapy administration, which is inadequately captured in the CPRD.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Pascal Egger for the technical support and programming of data extractions from the CPRD database.

Author contributions

All authors were involved in the design of the study. A.M.P. was responsible for the first draft of the protocol, which was critically reviewed and approved by all authors. A.M.P was responsible for data analysis and the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to data interpretation, critically reviewed all manuscript versions and read and agreed upon the final version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

No financial support was received for the conduct of this study. All authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Pharmaceutical Medicine (ECPM), University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    A. M. Pfeil, T. D. Szucs & M. Schwenkglenks

  2. Basel Pharmacoepidemiology Unit, Division of Clinical Pharmacy and Epidemiology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Basel, Spitalstrasse 26, 4031, Basel, Switzerland

    P. Imfeld & Christoph R. Meier

  3. Hospital Pharmacy, University Hospital Basel, Spitalstrasse 26, 4031, Basel, Switzerland

    P. Imfeld & Christoph R. Meier

  4. Cellular and Molecular Medicine, St. George’s University of London, London, UK

    R. Pettengell

  5. Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, Boston University School of Public Health, Lexington, MA, USA

    S. S. Jick & Christoph R. Meier

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  1. A. M. Pfeil
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Correspondence to Christoph R. Meier.

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Pfeil, A.M., Imfeld, P., Pettengell, R. et al. Trends in incidence and medical resource utilisation in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: insights from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Ann Hematol 94, 421–429 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-014-2217-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-014-2217-7

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