Comparative Treatment Persistence and Adherence to Endothelin Receptor Antagonists Among Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Japan: A Real-World Administrative Claims Database Study

Introduction: Real-world data on the comparative effectiveness of endothelin receptor antagonists (ERAs; macitentan, bosentan, ambrisentan) for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), particularly in Asian countries, are scarce. We evaluated the persistence of these ERAs before and after macitentan approval in Japan (2015).

Methods: We used real-world data from the Japanese Medical Data Vision administrative claims database between April 2008 and November 2020. Patients with PAH were identified from the dataset. Persistence to ERA treatment before and after approval of macitentan in Japan was defined as the time between start of the index ERA and treatment discontinuation or death. Propensity score adjustment was applied to minimize confounding effects among treatment groups.

Results: In the pre-macitentan approval cohort, 153 and 51 patients received bosentan and ambrisentan, respectively. In the post-macitentan approval cohort, 331, 284, and 91 patients received macitentan, bosentan, and ambrisentan, respectively. Unadjusted median persistence for ambrisentan- and bosentan-treated patients was 19 and 10 months, respectively (adjusted HR 0.87 [95% CI 0.61-1.24]; P = 0.434 [bosentan as reference]). In the post-macitentan approval cohort, unadjusted median persistence was 18 months for macitentan-treated patients versus 6 and 8 months for ambrisentan- and bosentan-treated patients, respectively. Adjusted HRs for ambrisentan and bosentan were 1.48 (95% CI 1.12-1.95; P = 0.006) and 1.63 (95% CI 1.30-2.04; P < 0.001 [macitentan as reference]), respectively.

Conclusions: Real-world data for Japanese patients with PAH showed that persistence was significantly higher for macitentan, versus ambrisentan and bosentan, since its approval.