Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, PK 6Z 165, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2013 Aug;52(8):1435-7. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/ket145. Epub 2013 Apr 12.
The effects of a 12-week treatment with modified-release prednisone (MR-pred) on the costs of drug treatment of RA were modelled.
With the results of a recent randomized trial as source data, we expressed the effect of treatment (MR-pred vs placebo) on the decrease in the proportion of RA patients meeting disease activity thresholds for reimbursement of biologic treatment.
The results showed 11-13% more patients on MR-pred than on placebo dropped below reimbursement thresholds for The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. Assuming 1 year of biologics cost €15,000 and MR-pred costs €1/day, €396 are saved in each patient delaying biologic treatment by 12 weeks.
Despite a considerably higher cost than conventional prednisone, MR-pred is a cost-effective option for RA patients not on glucocorticoids who are eligible for therapy with biologic agents.
对为期 12 周的改良释放泼尼松（MR-pred）治疗对 RA 药物治疗成本的影响进行建模。
以最近一项随机试验的结果作为源数据，我们表示治疗（MR-pred 与安慰剂）对降低达到生物治疗报销阈值的 RA 患者比例的影响。
结果表明，接受 MR-pred 治疗的患者比接受安慰剂治疗的患者中有 11-13%的患者下降到低于荷兰、比利时和英国的报销阈值。假设生物制剂的 1 年费用为€15,000，MR-pred 的每天费用为€1，每延迟生物制剂治疗 12 周可节省每个患者€396。
尽管 MR-pred 的成本明显高于传统的泼尼松，但对于尚未接受糖皮质激素治疗且有资格接受生物制剂治疗的 RA 患者而言，MR-pred 是一种具有成本效益的选择。
