Heterogeneity of the pharmacologic treatment of allergic rhinitis in Europe based on MIDAS and OTCims platforms.

BACKGROUND The practice of allergology varies widely between countries, and the costs and sales for the treatment of rhinitis differ depending on practices and health systems. To understand these differences and their implications, the rhinitis market was studied in some of the EU countries. METHODS We conducted a pharmaco-epidemiological database analysis to assess the medications that were prescribed for allergic rhinitis in the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. We used the IQVIA platforms for prescribed medicines (MIDAS® - Meaningful Integration of Data, Analytics and Services) and for OTC medicines (OTC International Market Tracking - OTCims). We selected the five most important markets in the EU (France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain). RESULTS Intra-nasal decongestants were excluded from the analyses because they are not prescribed for allergic rhinitis. For both Standard Units (SU) and costs, France is leading the other countries. In terms of SU, the four other countries are similar. For costs, Poland is lower than the three others. However, medication use differs largely. For 2018, in SU, intra-nasal corticosteroid is the first treatment in Poland (70.0%), France (51.3%), Spain (51.1%) and Germany (50.3%) whereas the Italian market is dominated by systemic anti-histamines (41.4%) followed by intra-nasal corticosteroids (30.1%). Results of other years were similar. DISCUSSION There are major differences between countries in terms of rhino-conjunctivitis medication usage.