SKC publishes on claims data for autoimmune disorders

AAV are a group of potentially life-threatening, chronic autoimmune disorders that cause damage to various organs of the patient due to inflammation of small blood vessels (rheumatic disease). Among other things, the publication examines the most common concomitant morbidities of AAV as well as the rates of relapse and mortality. This is another way in which we make a contribution that patients with diseases for which no or only limited treatment options are available receive access to a specific therapy.

Currently, more than 6,000 different orphan diseases are known. In Germany, the number of patients affected by one of these diseases is estimated to be around four million persons. Nevertheless, rare disorders in general are still insufficiently understood. Due to the small number of patients, it is difficult to gain knowledge about the disease as well as the patients' condition, but also to develop possible treatment options.

The methodological approach of health care claims data analyses, which represent data on the billing and reimbursement of services provided by statutory health insurers (SHI), has already been addressed in a previous blog post (click here for information on claims data analyses ). Especially when studying rare diseases, the analysis of claims data is an important source: compared to clinical trials or registry-based data collection, health care claims databases provide a much larger cohort of usually several million insured individuals, which allows for detailed and reliable retrospective analysis of data.

References:

• Seltene Erkrankungen - Bundesgesundheitsministerium November 2021
• Haller et al. 2021 "High burden of disease in patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis – A claims data study in Germany" (in German language), DOI: 10.1007/s00108-021-01181-z