A cancer and neutropenia database study.

The economic cost of treating febrile neutropenic cancer patients in Canada has not been defined. Amgen Canada Inc., the distributor of filgrastim (Neupogen Amgen Canada Inc.) was interested in determining this cost in order to evaluate the potential economic impact of filgrastim in the Canadian healthcare setting. Filgrastim is indicated to decrease the incidence of infection, as manifested by febrile neutropenia, in patients with nonmyeloid malignancies who receive myelosuppressive antineoplastic drugs. In addition, the company sought to determine which demographic factors influenced the cost. This was done to characterize which patients could derive clinical benefit from filgrastim while at the same time producing cost offsets through anticipated reductions in hospitalizations. In order to address these issues a study was commissioned to collect demographic data on patients diagnosed with both cancer and neutropenia in Canadian acute care hospitals. This cancer/neutropenia database was created from patient discharge abstracts contained in the 1990/91 Hospital Medical Records Institute national acute-care hospital database. The data presented in the HMRI report are consistent with the concept that subgroups of cancer patients exist in whom clinical benefits and cost off-sets may be realized from the use of growth factors.