Economic burden of pulmonary hypertension. Systematic review

Aim. A systematic review of studies on pulmonary hypertension (PH) cost estimates.Material and methods. A systematic literature search was performed for studies assessing the cost of PH published up to November 30, 2023. The search was carried out in the PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBACE databases for publications in English and in the RSCI database for articles in Russian according to inclusion and exclusion criteria.Results. The systematic review included 13 studies. The mean direct costs per patient with PH after verification of the diagnosis per month ranged from 2023 to 9915 USD, while the median from 1141,5 to 8144 USD. Indirect costs were assessed in only 3 following studies: in Spain and USA, the mean indirect costs were 214 and 1226 USD per patient per month, respectively, while in Russia the median was 65 USD. The mean direct costs per patient with PH per month before diagnosis verification ranged from 1017 to 9723 USD. Indirect costs before diagnosis verification were assessed in only 1 study (median $102 per patient per month). After PH verification, in general, there was an increase in treatment costs with a decrease in other direct costs.Conclusion. PH causes great socio-economic damage to society and healthcare system. A decrease in non-drug therapy costs after PH verification may indicate not only the clinical effectiveness of PH-specific therapy, but also its potential costeffectiveness with reduced costs.