Real-world healthcare resource utilization and costs in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: differences between patients treated with first-line ibrutinib or bendamustine + rituximab

This study evaluated the real-world healthcare resource utilization and costs in chronic lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL) patients treated with first-line ibrutinib monotherapy (IbM) therapy or bendamustine plus rituximab (BR) combination therapy.Treatment-naïve CLL patients in the IBM MarketScan Research Databases were identified based on the first prescription of either IbM or BR therapy between 1 February 2014 and 30 August 2017.A total of 1866 patients with 12 months of continuous enrollment (IbMThe results of this study suggest that further research on the real-world effectiveness of IbM in comparison to BR combination therapy, given the comparatively higher rates of inpatient admissions, longer lengths of stay, and more ER visits observed in IbM patients relative to the BR patients is needed. Given the differences in costs, it is important to further examine the impact these healthcare expenditures have on the cost-effectiveness of IbM first line treatment.