Healthcare Costs of Patients With Biopsy-Confirmed Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease are Nearly Twice Those of Matched Controls

Abstract Background & Aims Data on healthcare resource use and costs associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in clinical practice are lacking. We compared real-life healthcare costs of patients with NAFLD to matched controls. Methods We performed a retrospective study of 646 patients with biopsy-proven NAFLD in Sweden from 1971 through 2009. Each patient was matched for age, sex, and county of residence with 10 persons from the general population (controls). We retrieved all healthcare contacts through Dec 31, 2014 from national registers. Unit costs were assigned to arrive at a total healthcare cost (in USD [$]) per study subject. Results During a mean follow-up of 19.9 years, we recorded a mean of 0.27 hospitalizations per year for patients with NAFLD vs 0.16 for controls (P Conclusions Healthcare costs are nearly twice as high in patients with NAFLD than in matched controls. This is mostly attributable to higher costs for hospitalizations, but also to more outpatient visits. Patients with advanced fibrosis had the highest costs.