Higher medical costs for CKD patients with a rapid decline in eGFR: A cohort study from the Japanese general population

PLoS One. 2019 May 17;14(5):e0216432. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216432. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

To investigate how changes in eGFR can affect medical costs, a regional cohort of national health insurance beneficiaries in Japan was developed from a nationwide database system (Kokuho database, KDB), and non-individualized data were obtained. From 105,661 people, subjects on chronic dialysis and subjects without consecutive medical checkups were excluded. Finally, medical costs in the follow-up year categorized by annual changes in eGFR between baseline and the next year were longitudinally examined in 70,627 people ranging in age from 40 to 74 years. Global mean costs for subjects with a rapid decrease in eGFR (≤-30%/year) were the highest among all ΔeGFR categories. In men, the cost was 1.42 times that for a stable eGFR. A total of 6,268 (19.4%) men and 5,381 (14.0%) women with eGFR <60 ml/min/1.73 m2 were identified in the baseline year. The mean cost was higher with a low eGFR than without a low eGFR, and there were also higher proportions newly initiating dialysis in 2014 (low eGFR with rapid decrease in eGFR vs. with stable eGFR: 9.61% vs. 0.02% in women, P<0.001). Moreover, the costs for low eGFR subjects with a rapid decrease in eGFR were more than twice those of non-low eGFR subjects with a rapid decrease in eGFR and also compared to low eGFR subjects with a stable eGFR. Moreover, initiating chronic dialysis was considered one of the major causes of high medical costs in women with rapid eGFR decline. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of renal disease using a cohort developed from the KDB system recently established in Japan.

Publication types

  • Clinical Trial
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Asian People
  • Cohort Studies
  • Costs and Cost Analysis
  • Female
  • Glomerular Filtration Rate*
  • Humans
  • Japan
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Renal Dialysis / economics*
  • Renal Insufficiency, Chronic* / economics
  • Renal Insufficiency, Chronic* / physiopathology
  • Renal Insufficiency, Chronic* / therapy

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for “Research on Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease (REACH-J), Practical Research Project for Renal Disease” from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under Grant Number JP17ek0310005, JP18ek0310010, and 18lk1010033. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.