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The National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project has reported on
the increase in cost to treat HIV-infected individuals on second- and
third-line antretrovirals (ARVs). Researchers calculated costs after reviewing
data from 2007 to 2011 in the MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters
Database and from the MarketScan Lab Database, which covered 2007 to 2010. The
researchers followed 9,931 individuals in the first group, whose treatment
moved from first- to third-line therapy, and 486 individuals on ARVs in the
second group who provided data on CD4 counts.
The researchers adjusted for factors such as AIDS diagnosis,
sex, age, region of the country, and type of health insurance. Results showed
that the average cost for total care of HIV-infected individuals on first-line
therapy was $28,861, cost for second-line therapy was $35,805, and for
third-line, $40,804. Also, the average cost to treat a patient who started
treatment with more than 350 CD4 cells was $2,526 per month. Treatment for
individuals who started with 100–350 CD4 cells was $2,378 per month, and for
individuals with fewer than 100 CD4 cells, the price increased to $4,860 per
month.
The full report, “Burden of Illness in a US Commercially
Insured HIV Population: Treatment Patterns and Costs,” was presented at the
53rd ICAAC Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy,
September 10–13, 2013, Denver. Abstract H–662.
