Background: Atherothrombosis is the underlying cause of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and peripheral arterial disease and is the leading cause of death in the industrialized world. The objectives of the present study are (1) to examine the annual costs associated with vascular events and interventions that require hospitalization, as well as long-term medication use for the management of associated risk factors, in a US population of outpatients with multiple atherothrombotic risk factors or a history of symptomatic disease and (2) to compare costs across patient subgroups defined according to specific arterial bed(s) affected and the number of affected arterial beds.
Methods and results: The international REduction of Atherothrombosis for Continued Health (REACH) Registry enrolled outpatients > or =45 years of age who had established coronary artery, cerebrovascular, or peripheral artery disease or > or =3 atherothrombotic risk factors. Data on risk factors, associated medications, and vascular hospitalizations and interventions were collected. Of the total 68 236-patient REACH cohort, 25 763 were enrolled from US sites. Complete 1-year data were available for 23 974 (93%) of the US patients. Annualized medication costs ranged from $2401 to $3481. Mean annual hospitalization costs per patient were $1344, $2864, $4824, and $8155 for patients with 0 (n=6145), 1 (n=14 353), 2 (n=3106), and 3 (n=370) affected arterial beds at baseline (P<0.0001 for trend). Among patients with 1 affected arterial bed, mean hospitalization costs were $2999, $2010, and $3911 for patients with coronary artery disease (n=11 063), cerebrovascular disease (n=2613), and peripheral arterial disease (n=677), respectively. Annualized medication costs ranged from $2401 to $3481.
Conclusions: These results reveal the high economic burden of atherothrombosis-related clinical events and procedures and the especially high economic burden associated with polyvascular disease.