Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Previously, adherence and persistence to treatment have been shown to improve outcomes among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study aimed to evaluate adherence and persistence to single-inhaler triple therapy with fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/UMEC/VI; one inhalation, once-daily) compared with budesonide/glycopyrrolate/formoterol fumarate (BUD/GLY/FOR; two inhalations, twice-daily) among patients with COPD in the USA. METHODS: This retrospective weighted cohort study used claims data from the IQVIA PharMetrics(®) Plus Database from October 1, 2019 to March 31, 2023, to identify patients with COPD newly initiating FF/UMEC/VI or BUD/GLY/FOR. Index date was the first pharmacy claim for FF/UMEC/VI or BUD/GLY/FOR on or after October 1, 2020. The longest follow-up period was 12 months. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to balance baseline characteristics between cohorts. Adherence was measured as mean proportion of days covered (PDC); the proportion of patients with PDC ≥ 0.5 and PDC ≥ 0.8 was also assessed. Persistence was assessed as time to treatment discontinuation using Kaplan-Meier rates. RESULTS: Overall, 8912 and 2685 patients were included in the FF/UMEC/VI and BUD/GLY/FOR cohorts, respectively. After weighting, mean age and proportion of patients with Medicare Advantage insurance was 64.62 years and 40.0% in the FF/UMEC/VI cohort and 63.96 years and 36.1% in the BUD/GLY/FOR cohort. At 6 months post-index, mean PDC was greater in the FF/UMEC/VI versus the BUD/GLY/FOR cohort (0.65 versus 0.59; P < 0.001). A significantly greater proportion of patients in the FF/UMEC/VI versus the BUD/GLY/FOR cohort had PDC ≥ 0.8 (45.6% versus 34.5%; P < 0.001) and PDC ≥ 0.5 (71.8% versus 64.3%; P < 0.001). Results were consistent at 12 months post-index. When a 30-day gap was used to define treatment discontinuation, the FF/UMEC/VI cohort had statistically significantly greater treatment persistence versus the BUD/GLY/FOR cohort at all time points. CONCLUSION: In this study, patients initiating FF/UMEC/VI had significantly greater adherence and persistence to treatment than patients initiating BUD/GLY/FOR.