An Analysis on Prescribing Patterns of Alzheimer's Dementia Treatment and Choline Alfoscerate using HIRA Claims Data

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's dementia is the most common dementia. However, recently, choline alfoscerate is prescribed for treating Alzheimer's dementia, although it is not a treatment for this disease. PURPOSE: To analyze the prescription patterns of choline alfoscerate as a dementia treatment for patients with Alzheimer's disease and to analyze, as well as the factors affecting choline alfoscerate prescription. METHOD: The 2016 HIRA-NPS data was used in this study. The code of Alzheimer's dementia is F00 in the ICD-10 disease classification code. We analyzed the demographic, clinical, and regional characteristics associated with donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine, memantine, and choline alfoscerate prescriptions. All statistical and data analyse were conducted by SAS 9.4 and Excel. RESULTS: For patients with Alzheimer's disease, choline alfoscerate was the second most prescribed after donepezil. Analysis results showed that choline alfoscerate was more likely to be prescribed to men than to women, and more likely to be prescribed by local health centers than by medical institutions. Moreover, choline alfoscerate was highly likely to be prescribed at neurosurgical departments, among medical departments. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed that choline alfoscerate was prescribed considerably for patients with Alzheimer's dementia. Further studies valuating its clinical validity should be performed to clarify whether choline alfoscerate prescription is appropriate for treating Alzheimer's dementia.