Transplant Recipients Using Tacrolimus Had Higher Utilization of Healthcare Services Than Those Receiving Cyclosporine in Taiwan

Frontiers in Pharmacology

Chih-Sheng Lin²  Yi-Chang Lin⁴  Chien-Sung Tsai⁴  Yi-Ting Tsai⁴  Tien-Yu Huang⁵  Li-Ting Kao⁶  Jui-Hu Shih⁷  I-Hsun Li⁷  Kwai-Fong Lee⁸ 

[1] Biobank Management Center, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan;Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan;Department of Pharmacy Practice, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan;Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan;Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan;Graduate Institute of Life Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan;School of Pharmacy, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan;School of Public Health, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan;

关键词: healthcare service utilization;    tacrolimus;    cyclosporine;    heart transplant;    kidney transplant;    liver transplant;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fphar.2019.01074

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

To date, population-based studies on the healthcare service utilization among stable heart, kidney, and liver transplant recipients with different calcineurin inhibitors are still scarce. Therefore, we used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database to conduct a nationwide cross-sectional study to estimate the healthcare utilization of stable transplant recipients with tacrolimus or cyclosporine (n = 3,482). The sampled patients in this study comprised 377 heart, 1,693 kidney, and 1,412 liver transplant recipients between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2011. Each subject was followed for a 1-year period to evaluate his/her healthcare service utilization. Outcome variables of the healthcare service utilization were stated as below: numbers of outpatient visits, outpatient costs, numbers of inpatient days, inpatients costs, and total costs of all healthcare services. As for all healthcare service utilization, stable transplant recipients on tacrolimus had significantly more outpatient visits (40.7 vs. 38.6), outpatient costs (US$10,383 vs. US$8,155), and total costs (US$12,516 vs. US$10,372) of all healthcare services than those on cyclosporine during the 1-year follow-up period. Additionally, further analysis showed that heart transplant recipients receiving tacrolimus incurred 1.7-fold higher inpatient costs compared to patients receiving cyclosporine. We concluded that transplant recipients using tacrolimus had significantly higher utilization of all healthcare services than those receiving cyclosporine as immunosuppressive therapy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown