Healthcare utilization and expenditures in patients with tricuspid regurgitation: A population-based cohort study

Background: Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is the most common tricuspid valve (TV) condition. However, little is known about the prevalence, clinical significance, or economic impact of TR, including TR with comorbid heart failure (HF). Materials and Methods: Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database was used to perform a retrospective cohort study about patients with TR. The study included patients over the age of 18 with TR who provided data from January 2017 to December 2019. The cohorts were divided into six groups based on whether significant TR was present (sTR) or not (nsTR), and whether HF was present (HF) or not present (noHF), or inconclusive (incHF). Results: This study included 21,051 patients with TR. Patients with nsTR-noHF had an annualized healthcare burden of 0.36 all-cause hospitalizations, 3.26 days length of stay (LOS), and NTD 66,834 in expenses. sTR led to significant increases in healthcare utilization and expenditures. The annualized economic burden for sTR-noHF patients increased to 1.03 all-cause hospitalizations, 10.75 days LOS, and NTD 210,842 in expenses. Patients with sTR and HF had significantly higher healthcare utilization and expenditures; patients with sTR-HF had an annualized economic burden of 2.46 all-cause hospitalizations, 33.18 days LOS, and NTD 480,711 in spending. Conclusion: TR patients with HF or sTR are more likely to be hospitalized, use more healthcare resources, and face higher financial burdens.