Economic impact of lupus.

Current cost analyses that have been conducted on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have not been thorough economic evaluations of the disease and treatment; they have not considered the broad treatment effects such as quality of life and productivity. They have however examined healthcare resource use (ie, direct costs) and time loss (ie, indirect costs) and at minimum provide some perspective on the societal impact of this disease. Incorporating all of the above factors into an analysis is extremely important in SLE and it is hoped that future analyses will include them. Also, any new economic analyses that are conducted will need to compare the cost of new or alternative SLE therapies with existing standard treatments because new treatments are on the horizon.