<div>Date: March 13, 2021</div><div>Dr. Peter E. Newburger, M.D.
Editor-in-Chief, <i>Pediatric Blood &amp; Cancer</i></div><div>Dear Dr. Newburger,</div><div>We respectfully submit for your consideration our research article
entitled “The Economic Burden of Illness in Pediatric Acute
Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Patients from a Commercial and Medicaid
Insurance Perspective.” This study is the first to our knowledge to
analyze healthcare resource utilization and costs in patients with
pediatric ALL by Commercial and Medicaid insurance.</div><div>Through our analysis of 730 patients:</div><div>We observed no significant difference in the number of inpatient
admissions and a borderline difference in emergency room visits for
Commercial and Medicaid patients, but Commercial patients experienced
significantly more outpatient visits and significantly less pharmacy
claims compared to Medicaid patients.</div><div>Total healthcare costs were more than double for Commercial patients
compared to Medicaid patients, reflecting a significant difference in
total reimbursed amount for patients with Commercial and Medicaid.</div><div>The results presented in this manuscript have not been submitted
elsewhere nor previously published except in abstract form (accepted,
but not presented due to COVID-19 at <i>American Society of Pediatric
Hematology/Oncology (ASPHO) Annual Meeting,</i> May 2020). All listed
authors (Elisabetta Malangone-Monaco DrPH, Lenat Joffe MD, Zhezhen Jin
PhD, Dawn Hershman MD and Prakash Satwani MD) have contributed to the
manuscript in significant ways, all have reviewed the final version, and
all agree upon the manuscript content. None of the authors have any
affiliations that they consider to be relevant with any organization
that, to their knowledge, has a direct interest, particularly a
financial interest, in the subject matter discussed.</div><div>We suggest the following three potential reviewers: Nandita Khera
(khera.nandita@mayo.edu),</div><div>Hemalatha, Rangarajan
(Hemalatha.Rangarajan@nationwidechildrens.org)
and Alex Seif
(seifa@email.chop.edu).</div><div>We hope that you find this manuscript suitable for review and we thank
you for the opportunity to have our work evaluated for publication in
Pediatric Blood &amp; Cancer.</div><div>Sincerely,</div><div>Elisabetta Malangone-Monaco on behalf of the authors</div>