Objective:

Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), also known as Acne Inversa, is a chronic, inflammatory, recurring, debilitating skin disease of the hair follicles. It is most commonly present in the axillae, inguinal and anogenital regions. There are few studies available about the economic burden of HS on patients from different countries and we feel the need to develop such a project in the context of HS disease in Turkey. Therefore, the aim of this study is to estimate the yearly cost of HS disease in Turkey from the payer's perspective.

Materials and Methods:

This is a prevalence-based CoI study with a focus on direct health care costs of HS from the perspective of the payer. A multipoint data collection procedure has been performed based on the literature search for HS epidemiological data, treatment choices, and direct health care costs to develop the analysis and the structure of the CoI of HS. The disease itself and treatment options have been reviewed. Assumptions and calculations were done according to the literature.

Results:

The total number of Turkish people with HS has been estimated as 80.811 according to the 0.10 % prevalence rate of Garg and his colleagues’ prevalence study. The 12 months costs were estimated as 21.067.174 TRY for patients on Hurley stage I, for the year 2018. We estimated the total direct cost attributable to HS as 741.615.190 TRY and revealed that the average one-year direct cost per patient was 9.177 TRY.

Conclusion:

We found that the cost per patient seems similar but the proportions of the costs are different than the other published HS CoI studies from various parts of the world even though the methods differ greatly. HS is a disease which is attributed as ‘rare’ and ‘unknown’ but, surprisingly, it takes an important place in the national healthcare budget as treatment costs.

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