New data highlights urgent crisis posed on US healthcare system by DFUs and VLUs

Organogenesis Inc., a commercial leader in the field of regenerative medicine, presented new data generated in collaboration with a team of expert economists from Analysis Group (a leading health economics consultancy) demonstrating the significant healthcare resource and economic burden that diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) and venous leg ulcers (VLU) place upon the US healthcare system.

The results of this research, which reveal annual costs of up to $15 billion and $18 billion for DFU and VLU respectively, were presented at the prestigious International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 18^th Annual Meeting held May 18-22, 2013 in New Orleans, LA. These large, real-world analyses of privately-insured and Medicare beneficiaries evaluated data from control matched pairs of 81,516 VLU and 32,414 DFU patients, and are the first to rigorously assess patient characteristics, medical resource usage and costs for both DFU and VLU populations.

The findings underscore the urgent need for improved identification, prevention and aggressive treatment of these debilitating chronic wounds.

"Despite the high prevalence in the US, little is known about the burden of conditions like DFU and VLU," said Brad Rice , PhD, an economist with Analysis Group. "When conducting research that employs these robust matching methods, we don't typically see incremental costs as high as those we have uncovered here."

In a podium presentation, "Medical, Drug and Work-loss Costs of Diabetic Foot Ulcers," Dr. Rice unveiled the results from an analysis of per-patient costs of DFUs, which are estimated to affect 900,000 patients in the US annually. Compared to matched non-DFU diabetic patients, DFU patients had higher rates of comorbidities and utilized more medical resources during the 12-month follow-up period, including increases in days hospitalized (+138.2% Medicare, +173.5% private), days requiring home health care (+85.4% Medicare, +230.0% private), emergency department visits (+40.6% Medicare, +109.0% private), and outpatient/physician office visits (+35.1% Medicare, +42.5% private). This resulted in costs among DFU patients of approximately twice that of matched non-DFU diabetic patients, with annual incremental per-patient healthcare costs of $11,296 for Medicare and $15,329 for privately-insured patients. These findings suggest an annual payer burden associated with DFUs of up-to $15 billion.

A poster presentation, titled "Medical, Drug and Work-loss Costs of Venous Leg Ulcers," unveiled findings from the first study to analyze  the US resource and economic burden imposed by VLUs, which are the most frequently occurring type of chronic leg wound, estimated to affect approximately 2.5 million patients in the US per year.

Results showed that compared to non-VLU matched patients, VLU patients were found to be nearly twice as costly as the general population for private payers and 50% more costly for Medicare. VLU patients utilized more medical resources, including more days hospitalized (+80.6% Medicare, +83.5% private), days requiring home health care (+74.4% Medicare, +202.8% private), emergency department visits (+36.5% Medicare, +46.9% private), and outpatient/physician office visits (+27.3% Medicare, +39.7% private). These findings suggest an annual payer burden of up to $18 billion.

"These startling results highlight the urgent crisis posed on our health care system by DFUs and VLUs, and should serve as a call to action for improving both the prevention and aggressive treatment of these wounds," said Geoff MacKay, president and CEO of Organogenesis Inc. "With approaches currently available, including living cell-based products like Apligraf that have been proven to shorten healing times, there is no reason that a patient affected by a VLU or DFU should receive sub-optimal care. We will continue to work to ensure that these important data are well understood in an era of health care reform, and to ensure the millions of patients with chronic wounds receive the advanced care they deserve."