Ritsumeikan University Reports Findings in Biliary Atresia (Direct health care cost of treatment and medication of biliary atresia patients using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups): Biliary Tract Diseases and Conditions – Biliary Atresia

2022 FEB 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Biliary Tract Diseases and Conditions - Biliary Atresia is the subject of a report. According to news reporting from Kyoto, Japan, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Treatment of biliary atresia (BA), which typically requires an initial surgical intervention called the Kasai procedure (KP) and possible liver transplant (LT) afterwards, is quite resource-intensive and would affect patients and families for a lifetime; yet a comprehensive view of the economic burden has not been reported. We estimated direct health care costs from the public payer perspective using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan.”

Financial support for this research came from Mitsubishi Foundation.

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Ritsumeikan University, “Children newly diagnosed at ages 0 days to 4 years between April 2010 and September 2019 were identified. Costs of treatment were estimated for six phases of care: prediagnosis, KP and inpatient hospitalization, follow-up after KP, pre-transplant checkup, LT and inpatient hospitalization, and follow-up after LT. Mean total prediagnosis medical cost was $6847 (USD) and KP and inpatient hospitalization was $42,157 per year. Follow-up after KP was $15,499, and pre-transplant checkup after KP was $36,015 per year. Mean cost for LT and inpatient hospitalization was $105,334, and follow-up after liver transplant was $25,459 per year. Treatment of BA requires extensive medical resource consumption.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The use of the comprehensive national database allowed us to estimate the costs which will be useful for health service planning and cost-effectiveness analysis.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Direct health care cost of treatment and medication of biliary atresia patients using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups. Pediatric Surgery International, 2022. Pediatric Surgery International can be contacted at: Springer, One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, Ny, United States. (Springer - www.springer.com; Pediatric Surgery International - http://www.springerlink.com/content/0179-0358/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Eri Hoshino, Comprehensive Unit for Health Economic Evidence Review and Decision Support (CHEERS), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. Additional authors for this research include Keiko Konomura, Masayuki Obatake, Kensuke Moriwaki, Michi Sakai, Kevin Y. Urayama and Kojiro Shimozuma.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00383-022-05079-1. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Publisher contact information for the journal Pediatric Surgery International is: Springer, One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, Ny, United States.

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