Characterization and Treatment Patterns of Peri/Menopausal and Postmenopausal Women with and Without Vasomotor Symptoms in a Retrospective Database Study.

Introduction: Vasomotor symptoms (VMS) are the most commonly reported menopausal symptoms and vary across race and ethnicity, with higher prevalence and duration among Black and Hispanic women. This study describes demographics/clinical characteristics and treatment patterns of peri/menopausal and postmenopausal women with symptomatic menopause/VMS and asymptomatic menopause in a commercial claims population.

Methods: Data from Optum's deidentified Clinformatics Data Mart Database were obtained for peri/menopausal (aged 40-54 years) and postmenopausal (aged 55-64 years) women. VMS is not available directly in claims data and was proxied using symptomatic menopausal ICD-9/10 codes. In Phase 1, prevalence of symptomatic and asymptomatic peri/menopause (defined by ICD-9/10 codes) and baseline demographics/clinical characteristics were obtained. Phase 2 included baseline demographics/clinical characteristics, symptomatic menopause/VMS incidence rates, and treatment patterns.

Results: Phase 1 included 1,987,355 ICD-9/10 codes for symptomatic or asymptomatic menopause. Peri/menopausal women had lower symptomatic menopause/VMS prevalence compared to postmenopausal women (6.5% vs. 4.9%). Symptomatic menopause/VMS prevalence was 5.7% and highest in White (6.3%) and lowest in Asian (3.4%) women.Phase 2 included 203,546 (53.3%) peri/menopausal and 178,658 (46.7%) postmenopausal women. Symptomatic menopause/VMS incidence was 1.2%; only 52.9% were treated. Lower incidence and treatment rates were seen among Asian (0.46%; 33.2%), Hispanic (0.43%; 46.7%), and Black (0.41%; 47.1%) women compared to White (0.59%; 55.5%) women.

Conclusions: This study adds to the literature by characterizing women with symptomatic menopause/VMS across the menopausal spectrum and shows that caution is needed when interpreting real-world claims data due to inherent claims database limitations. As there are no specific ICD codes for VMS, difficulties exist in utilization of claims data to accurately capture VMS characteristics and treatment patterns.