Study tracks narcolepsy incidence, healthcare costs in France

Approximately one in 200,000 people in France is diagnosed with narcolepsy every year, according to a study.

“This evaluation of population-level data from [national databases] provides a robust estimate of incidence of narcolepsy in France,” the researchers wrote.

They also found that people newly diagnosed with narcolepsy accrue significantly more healthcare costs and sick leave than their similarly aged peers, though rates of accidents and death are not significantly elevated among narcolepsy patients.

The study, “Incidence, healthcare resource use, and costs of narcolepsy: a French claims database analysis,” was published in Sleep Medicine. The work was funded by Takeda Development Center Americas. Takeda markets Orzeyful (oveporexton), an approved oral treatment for adults with type 1 narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder marked by abnormal sleepiness during the day. Narcolepsy can have a substantial effect on patients’ quality of life, and the healthcare resources needed to manage the disorder can put a strain on the healthcare system as a whole.

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The team of four researchers, including one from Takeda, set out to estimate the impact of narcolepsy in France using a national healthcare database. To identify incident narcolepsy (that is, newly diagnosed patients), the researchers looked for individuals with a recorded narcolepsy diagnosis code, as well as either a sleep test in the year before the code or a prescription for a narcolepsy medication after the diagnosis was recorded. The researchers noted that, from the database, they were unable to distinguish between different types of narcolepsy.

Of the 67 million people in the database between 2014 and 2018, a total of 1,650 met these criteria for incident narcolepsy. That works out to an incidence of roughly 0.5 cases per 100,000 person-years — meaning that if 200,000 people were followed for one year, one would be expected to be diagnosed with narcolepsy. This incident rate is “consistent with previously reported values elsewhere in Europe,” such as Germany and the U.K., the researchers noted.

The scientists said narcolepsy diagnoses were most common during adolescence and young adulthood, which is also consistent with prior research.

The researchers then compared healthcare resource utilization among these 1,650 narcolepsy patients against 13,652 randomly selected people from the general population who had no recorded diagnosis of narcolepsy but were matched by factors such as age and sex. Results showed that narcolepsy patients had significantly higher rates of specialist visits and hospitalizations. Total healthcare costs were roughly twice as high among the narcolepsy patients, driven mainly by hospitalization costs.

Analyses of salaried adults showed that narcolepsy patients were also significantly more likely to take sick leave from work. However, comparisons of accident-related hospitalization and death rates showed no significant differences between individuals with narcolepsy and those without the condition.

These findings are broadly in line with studies from elsewhere in Europe and the U.S., which similarly have shown that narcolepsy comes at a substantial cost in terms of healthcare resources. The team noted that the study’s relatively small sample size and limited follow-up duration “preclude drawing definitive conclusions” regarding death rates.

“We found that healthcare burdens including [healthcare resource utilization], direct costs, and sickness leave were substantially elevated for people with narcolepsy compared with matched controls,” the researchers concluded. “These findings underscore the substantial clinical and economic burden of narcolepsy and highlight the multifaceted needs of individuals with this condition.”