Medicine treatment of glaucoma in Australia 2012-2019: Prevalence, incidence and persistence

Benjamin Daniels*, Paul Healey, Claudia Bruno, Iain Kaan, Helga Zoéga

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Objective Medical therapy can halt or significantly slow the progression of glaucoma if medicines are used in accordance with the guidelines. We used dispensing claims for a 10% sample of all Australians dispensed publicly subsidised glaucoma medicines to determine the prevalence and incidence of glaucoma medicine treatment and to examine treatment persistence between July 2012 and June 2019. Methods We estimated incidence and prevalence per 10 000 population for Australian financial years (1 July to 30 June). We defined prevalence as at least one dispensing of any glaucoma medicine and incidence as a dispensing of any glaucoma medicine with no previous dispensing during the preceding 12 months. We estimated duration of treatment for a cohort initiating glaucoma medicines and used Kaplan-Meier methods to estimate the proportion of people persisting on treatment at 6, 12, 18 and 36 months after initiation. We stratified analyses by the number of repeats prescribed at initiation, age, sex and medicine class. Results Prevalence remained stable over the study period at around 180/10 000 people/year; incidence was also stable around 36/10 000/year. Among 34 900 people initiating glaucoma medicines, 37.0% remained on treatment at 6 months from initiation, 29.8% at 12 months and 19.2% at 36 months. Median duration of treatment was 13.2 months (IQR: 2.5 - not reached) for people initiating prostaglandin analogues and less than 3 months for those initiating other medicine classes. Conclusion Prevalence and incidence of glaucoma treatment have not changed in Australia over the past decade. Persistence to treatment increased with age but remained poor throughout the study period.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere000921
JournalBMJ Open Ophthalmology
Volume6
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

This study was sponsored by Allergan (prior to its acquisition by AbbVie).
This research was further supported by the National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence in Medicines Intelligence (ID:
1196900). HZ is supported by a UNSW Scientia Programme Award. CB is supported
by an Australian Government Research Training Programme PhD scholarship.

Publisher Copyright:
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Other keywords

  • drugs
  • epidemiology
  • glaucoma
  • public health

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