Hospital visits and costs following outpatient treatment of CAP with levofloxacin or moxifloxacin.

AbstractBackground:Hospital admissions (inpatient and emergency room) are a major source of medical costs for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) initially treated in the outpatient setting. Current CAP treatment guidelines do not differentiate between outpatient treatment with levofloxacin and moxifloxacin.Objective:Compare health care resource use and medical costs to payers for CAP outpatients initiating treatment with levofloxacin or moxifloxacin.Research design and methods:CAP episodes were identified in the PharMetrics database between 2Q04 and 2Q07 based on: pneumonia diagnosis, chest X-ray and treatment with levofloxacin or moxifloxacin. Subsequent 30-day risk of pneumonia-related hospital visits and 30-day health care costs to payers for levofloxacin vs. moxifloxacin treatment were estimated after adjusting for pre-treatment demographics, health care resource use and pneumonia-specific risk factors using propensity score and exact factor matching.Results:A total of 15,472 levofloxacin- and 6474 mo...