# The healthcare burden of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP)

## TL;DR

This study shows that people with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) have higher healthcare use and costs compared to others.

## Contribution

The study provides the largest analysis of PAP patients and matched controls, revealing significant differences in healthcare burden.

## Key findings

- PAP patients had higher rates of diagnosed conditions, procedures, and medication use compared to controls.
- PAP patients had more emergency room visits, outpatient visits, and longer hospital stays than controls.
- Healthcare costs for PAP patients were significantly higher than for non-PAP patients.

## Abstract

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is a rare lung syndrome characterized by the accumulation of surfactant in the alveoli. Using a longitudinal claims database, we compared measures of clinical and economic burden between a sample of diagnosed PAP patients and non-PAP matched controls.

PAP patients were identified leveraging IPM.ai’s longitudinal U.S. claims database spanning January 1, 2009, through May 1, 2022. PAP patients were selected based on the presence of ICD-10: J84.01 or ICD-9: 516.0 in their claims history and were indexed for observation. An age, gender, and geographically matched control cohort was created (ratio of 1:4) for comparison. A third cohort, consisting of likely undiagnosed PAP patients, was identified using a machine learning model. The PAP and control cohorts were tracked longitudinally, depending on individual index dates, from January 1, 2018, through May 1, 2023. Inclusion criteria required evidence of continual claims activity 12 months prior to and after the index date, which reduced the total number of diagnosed PAP and control patients in the analysis. Demographics, comorbidities, procedures, medication use, annual healthcare resource utilization (HCRU), and costs were calculated for eligible PAP and control patients and were compared 12 months prior to, and 12 months after each patient’s index date.

After inclusion criteria were applied, 2312 confirmed PAP patients and 9247 matched controls were included in the analysis. Compared with matched controls, PAP patients had significantly higher rates of diagnosed conditions at baseline as defined by the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). During the follow-up period, PAP patients had higher rates of diagnosed conditions, procedures, medication use, and cost-of-care compared with controls. PAP patients also had higher rates of emergency room visits (35% vs. 14%; P < 0.001), outpatient visits (87% vs. 56%; P < 0.001), inpatient visits (20% vs. 5%; P < 0.001) and had longer lengths of stay for inpatient hospitalizations (2.8 days vs. 0.56 days; P < 0.001), respectively.

This study represents the largest dataset of PAP patients and matched controls to be analyzed to date. Findings indicate that PAP patients have higher rates of diagnosed conditions, procedures, medication use, HCRU, and costs compared with non-PAP patients.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13023-024-03478-2.