1. Persistence with daily growth hormone among children and adolescents with growth hormone deficiency in the UK.
- Author
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Loftus J, Wogen J, Oliveri D, Benjumea D, Jhingran P, Chen Y, Alvir J, Rivero-Sanz E, Kowalik JC, and Wajnrajch MP
- Subjects
- Humans, Adolescent, Male, Child, Female, Growth Hormone, Retrospective Studies, United Kingdom epidemiology, Human Growth Hormone therapeutic use, Dwarfism, Pituitary drug therapy, Dwarfism, Pituitary epidemiology
- Abstract
Background: Children with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) are treated with daily somatropin injections; however, poor treatment persistence and adherence have been recognized previously and have been shown to negatively impact growth outcomes. A recent real-world study of a US pediatric GHD population found that a substantial proportion of children discontinued somatropin therapy, but similar data for a real-world UK population are lacking., Objectives: To describe the discontinuation of, and persistence with, daily somatropin treatment among children with GHD in the UK., Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of children (≥3 and <16 years old) with ≥1 medication prescription for daily injectable somatropin from 1 July 2000 to 31 December 2020 in the IQVIA Medical Research DATA (IMRD) database. Early persistence was defined as the proportion of children prescribed ≥1 somatropin refill (≥2 prescriptions). Discontinuation was defined as the first date at which a medication gap for somatropin (of >60 or >90 days between prescriptions) occurred. Kaplan-Meier methods were used to evaluate persistence (non-discontinuation) over time to assess time to first discontinuation event. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the relationship between patient characteristics and time to medication discontinuation., Results: Among the cohort identified in this study ( n = 117), the majority ( n = 84, 71.8%) had 48 months of available follow-up; 56.4% were boys and the mean (median) age was 8.6 (8.0) years. About 98% exhibited early persistence, but persistence over the follow-up period decreased with follow-up duration. Using the conservative 90-day gap definition of persistence, an estimated 72.4%, 52.8%, and 43.3% were persistent at 12, 36, and 48 months. Lower persistence rates were observed using the 60-day definition. No significant patient predictors of time to discontinuation were identified., Conclusions: Despite high early persistence with somatropin, a high percentage of children with GHD were increasingly non-persistent over time. More than 1 in 4 were non-persistent at 12 months and more than 1 in 2 were non-persistent at 48 months of follow-up. These results suggest that strategies to support improved medication-taking behavior among children with GHD in the UK are warranted., Competing Interests: JL, YC, JA, ES, JK, and MW are all employees of Pfizer Inc. and may hold stock/stock options. JW, DO, DB, and PJ are all employees of Genesis Research, LC, which was a paid consultant to Pfizer for this study. The authors declare that this study received funding from Pfizer Inc. The funder had the following involvement with the study: study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript., (Copyright © 2022 Loftus, Wogen, Oliveri, Benjumea, Jhingran, Chen, Alvir, Rivero-Sanz, Kowalik and Wajnrajch.)
- Published
- 2022
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