Costs of Hospital Admission on Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases

Abstract

Background: Primary immunodeficiency diseases (PID) are heterogeneous group of inherited disorders mainly characterized by recurrent infections leading to several times hospital admissions. The economic impact of PID is a challenging issue; therefore, this study was designed to determine the medical costs of hospitalizations in this group of patients as an indicator of the direct cost of these diseases.

Methods: One hundred and ten children with PID hospitalized in the Children's Medical Center Hospital, Tehran, Iran were included in this study during Jan 2011 and Jan 2012. All direct costs during the admission period were calculated, using the hospital information system.

Results: Medical cost was 7.090$ per patient per admission. Among them, about 1.580$ belong to drug consuming during hospitalization. Anti-infective drugs for systemic use were the most cost-consuming group of drugs, followed by alimentary tract and metabolism and blood and blood forming organs agents. Investigation of anti-infective group internally showed that immune sera and immunoglobulin and antiviral agents for systemic use consisting the most important medication for PID patients during hospital admission.

Conclusion: Although the results of economic evaluations in a region cannot necessarily be applied to other regions, having an overall estimation of hospital admission costs and types of drugs used during admission could be helpful in health policy system.

Keywords: Cost of diseases; Drugs; Hospitalization; Medical health care; Primary immunodeficiency.

Fig. 1:

Cost of admission (red line) and drugs (blue line) of primary immunodeficiency patients during different seasons; spring (n=23), summer (n=24), fall (n=33), and winter (n=29)