Real-world treatment patterns and outcomes of omalizumab use in patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria

Objective: To examine treatment patterns, treatment response, and demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) newly initiated on omalizumab therapy in real-world practice in the US.

Methods: This retrospective observational cohort study used US claims data from the HealthCore Integrated Research Database (HIRD^®) augmented with medical record data to identify CIU patients newly-treated with omalizumab (≥4 omalizumab claims within 6 months of initial claim; index date = first omalizumab claim date) between March 21, 2014 and October 31, 2015 and with ≥6 months pre- and ≥12 months post-index health plan eligibility. Study outcomes were captured from medical records for up to 12 months pre-index and up to 24 months post-index. Descriptive statistics were reported.

Results: This study consisted of 88 patients with a mean (SD) age of 43.4 (± 13.46) years, 68.2% were female, and 36 patients had ≥18 months post-index eligibility. Among 69 patients with documented index dose, 75.4% received omalizumab 300 mg and 69.6% remained on index dose throughout follow-up. For 52 patients with documented index dosing frequency, 96.2% had every 4-week dosing frequency. Among 86 patients with omalizumab documentation, 83.7% reported CIU improvement after omalizumab initiation and 24.4% discontinued omalizumab. For all patients, the proportion using oral corticosteroids (OCS) decreased pre- to post-index (52.3% vs 39.8%). Similar results were observed for patients with ≥18 months post-index eligibility.

Conclusions: In this real-world analysis, the majority of patients remained on omalizumab for ≥12 months, and had a positive response. OCS use decreased following omalizumab initiation.