Photo Credit: Myboxpra

An observational cohort study published in the Journal of Medical Economics, reported health care resource utilization (HCRU) and medical costs in US adults with MASH, stratified by Fibrosis-4 Index (FIB-4) scores. Using claims data from the Healthcare Integrated Research Database (HIRD), Michael R. Charlton, MBBS, and colleagues compared all-cause, cardiovascular (CV)-related, and liver-related HCRU and costs across patients with low, indeterminate, and high FIB-4 scores. Among 5,104 patients, those with high FIB-4 scores had a significantly higher rate of all-cause hospitalizations (RR, 1.63) and CV-related costs (2.15 times higher) compared with low FIB-4 scores. Liver-related hospitalizations and costs were dramatically higher in the indeterminate and high FIB-4 cohorts, with rates up to 12.08 and 33.73 times greater, respectively.