Browsing by Subject "biological treatment"

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease with prevalence of 0.8% among Finnish adult population. Consequent medical treatment, joint replacement surgery and productivity losses lead to significant expenses for society. While biological treatments for RA are costly, they can improve patients' quality of life and work participation. Economic evaluations provide information on the benefits and costs of these expensive treatments to aid optimal utilization of limited healthcare resources. This master`s thesis comprises the description of the Finnish Current Care Guidelines for RA, the cost of biological treatments and the principles of economic evaluations and health technology assessment. A systematic literature review was performed to identify existing studies examining the cost-effectiveness of biological treatments for RA. Of the 4890 references found with the literature search, 38 original studies and 9 previous systematic reviews were included in the current systematic literature review. Details of the methods as well as information on treatments, costs, benefits and incremental cost-effectiveness were extracted. Quality of the original studies was evaluated using quality assessment tools. Ninety percent (34/38) of the original studies used cost-utility modeling approach. Quality of life estimates were derived from RA specific health assessment questionnaire in a majority of the studies. Based on the current systematic literature review, the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of biological treatments is inconsistent. The incremental cost-effectiveness of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers was 13 500-772 000 €/ quality adjusted life year (QALY) in comparison to conventional disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs (DMARD) among patients without previous treatment with DMARDs. Several studies reported incremental cost-effectiveness ratios over 100 000 €/QALY in this population. Among patients with insufficient response to DMARDs, TNF blockers provided incremental cost-effectiveness ratios between 6 700 and 317 000 €/QALY. In most studies Rituximab was found to be a cost-effective alternative in contrast to other treatments among patients with insufficient response to TNF blockers. Biological treatments are not cost-effective among patients naïve to conventional DMARDs. Meanwhile, in patients with previous DMARD failure TNF-blockers might be cost-effective. The evidence on the cost effectiveness of biological treatments supports Finnish Current Care Guidelines. The quality assessment of the included studies revealed several sources of bias, consequently reducing the validity of the studies. Only a few of the conference abstracts in current subject has been published later as an article indicating existence of reporting bias. This study has several strengths. First, a comprehensive literature search was performed. Second, the quality of included studies was carefully evaluated. Finally, the methods and reporting are transparent. Weakness of the current study is one person extracting data and assessing the quality of the studies, which may reduce the reliability of this study. This systematic literature review is a basis for future studies examining cost-effectiveness of biological treatments in Finnish healthcare system.