Trial reportAdvances in therapy2016
Efficacy and Treatment Costs of Monotherapy with bDMARDs in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Patients Intolerant to or Inappropriate to Continue Treatment with Methotrexate.
Trial report in Advances in therapy, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- A robust machine learning approach to predicting remission and stratifying risk in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with bDMARDs.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Machine Learning Prediction of Treatment Response to Biological Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs in Rheumatoid Arthritis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Pharmacoeconomic analysis of biologics and methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis from the standpoint of the number needed to treat concept under the Japanese health insurance system.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2022Article
- Sarilumab monotherapy compared with adalimumab monotherapy for the treatment of moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis: an analysis of incremental cost per effectively treated patient.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2019Article
- Observational
- Label-Free Quantification of Anti-TNF-α in Patients Treated with Adalimumab Using an Optical Biosensor.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Article
- Mean cost per number needed to treat with tocilizumab plus methotrexate versus abatacept plus methotrexate in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in patients previously treated with methotrexate.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionOnly limited information is available on cost efficacy of the various biological agents used to treat patients with rheumatoid arthritis with intolerance or for whom it would be inappropriate to continue treatment with conventional agents. We estimated the efficacy and treatment costs of monotherapy with biological agents in the treatment of this group of patients.
methodsData from two previous meta-analyses in the treatment of patients who are intolerant to methotrexate (MTX), or for whom it would be inappropriate to continue treatment with MTX was used. Pharmacoeconomic comparison between biological agents was carried out to estimate the respective cost for the number needed to treat (NNT) compared to placebo using both American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) criteria. The analysis involved the four agents approved in Italy: adalimumab (ADA), etanercept (ETN), certolizumab pegol (CTZ), and tocilizumab (TCZ). A six-month period was considered sufficient to understand the most important differences in efficacy and treatment costs. Direct medical costs, including pharmacological therapy, administration and monitoring were considered.
resultsUsing both ACR and EULAR criteria, TCZ (intravenous [iv]/subcutaneous [sc]) had a lower NNT than the other agents. The difference in NNT observed for ETN was more pronounced with EULAR criteria, whereas in the comparison with ADA, the most sensitive differences were observed with ACR criteria. ETN had the lowest treatment cost (€6402.19), followed by ADA (€6698.84), TCZ sc (€6887.61), and TCZ iv (€7130.83). TCZ sc had the lowest cost for NNT with both ACR and EULAR criteria. The differences compared to ETN and ADA were significant and related with the level of efficacy. Sensitivity analysis confirmed these results.
conclusionTCZ is a cost-effective therapeutic option compared to other tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitors (ADA, ETA, CTZ) as first-line monotherapy for patients who are intolerant to MTX, or for whom it is inappropriate to continue treatment with MTX.
fundingRoche SpA.
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