The worldwide CRPA prevalence has been on the raise and Taiwan has been also keeping up with the trend. Antimicrobials usage should be monitored carefully, especially with carbapenems and aminoglycoside. Clinicians should be award of and understand about the risk of CRPA infection, which increases by 1% with each hospitalization day.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory systemic disease characterized by persistent joint synovial inflammation and swelling, leading to cartilage damage and bone erosion. This retrospective, longitudinal study is to evaluate the treatment patterns of biologic-naïve RA patients receiving index biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (bDMARD) and tofacitinib by the data of Taiwan National Healthcare Insurance Claims and the Death Registry between 2012 and 2017. Drug survival and treatment patterns were determined by investigating the occurrence of switching and discontinuation from index treatment. At baseline, 70.0% of patients used tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) bDMARD with the majority taking etanercept (27.0%) or adalimumab (26.2%). During the follow-up period, 40.0% (n = 3,464) of index users switched (n = 1,479) or discontinued (n = 1,985) the treatment with an average incidence rate of 0.18 per patient-year. Among the six index treatment groups, drug survival was the lowest for adalimumab and highest for tocilizumab. When compared with etanercept, only adalimumab had a higher cumulative probability of switching/discontinuation (adjusted HR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.08–1.28), whereas golimumab, non-TNFi bDMARDs and tofacitinib were significantly less probable to switch or discontinue. For patients switching the index treatment, tocilizumab (31.2%) and tofacitinib (23.4%) were the main regimens being switched to. In addition, 48.2% of patients who discontinued the index treatment received further retreatment, and 63.8–77.0% of them were retreated with same agent. In conclusion, this population-based study found that TNFi were the preferred agents as the index treatments during 2012–2017. Non-TNFi and tofacitinib were more common second-line agents being switched to. Nearly half of discontinued patients received retreatment, with a majority receiving the same agent.
Background:Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with advanced therapy (biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs) may be considered dose tapering after reaching treatment goal.1In EULAR 2016 recommendations, dose reduction can be considered if patients reach sustained remission.2A dose tapering policy of advanced therapy was introduced in the treatment guideline of RA since 2014 under the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan. The new reimbursement policy requests the dosage to be tapered in patients who received advanced therapy for 2 years and reached low disease activity defined by DAS28 (ESR).Objectives:This retrospective study aims to investigate the impact of dose tapering policy on prescription pattern of advanced therapy for RA patients in Taiwan.Methods:This study was an observational retrospective analysis on the population-based National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) in Taiwan. Patients with RA aged ≥18, initiated an index advanced therapy - abatacept, adalimumab, etanercept, golimumab, tocilizumab, or tofacitinib, during 2011-2017 were included (Figure 1). Patients were followed-up until the index advanced therapy was switched/discontinued or the end of data, whichever came first. The 4-week moving average of proportion of days covered (PDC) of the index therapy within each 12-week period were assessed. The outcome variable was whether dose tapering occurred which was defined as PDC being less than 0.5. The odds ratios (ORs) and the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) with logistic specification to examine the independent effect of tapering policy and treatment duration on the probability of dose tapering, after controlling for age, sex, and index advanced therapy.Figure 1.Flow chart of patient selection:Results:The study comprised 9,094 patients initiated advance treatment for RA, with mean age of 57.3 (SD 13.3) years and 78.8% were female. The median PDC dropped remarkably after 28 months since treatment initiation (Figure 2). Probability of dose tapering increased significantly when treatment duration ≥24-month (OR=2.73,p<0.001). When treatment duration < 24-month, Dose Tapering policy was not significantly associated with tapering prescription. However, implementation of the policy further increased the probability of dose tapering for patients with treatment duration ≥ 24-month, OR for interaction of policy by duration was 1.17, and test for interactionp=0.014. There were about 3 times increase in the odds of dose tapering probability for patient treated longer than 24 months after the policy implemented in April 2014.Figure 2.The change of PDC of advanced therapy over the treatment periodConclusion:For RA patients, PDC of advanced therapy dropped notably after patients received advanced therapy for more than 24 months. The tapering policy implementation significantly increased the probability of dose tapering of advanced therapy in patients with treatment duration ≥ 24 months.References:[1]Lenert A, Lenert P. Clin Rheumatol. 2017;36(1):1-8.[2]Smolen JS, et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2017;76(6):960-977.Table 1.effect of treatment duration and dose tapering policy on the probability of dose taperingOdds ratio95%CIp valueEffect of Treatment Duration (in pre-policy period)≥24-month vs <24-month2.73(2.45,3.05)<.001Effect of Dose Tapering policy (in treatment duration <24 months)Post-policy*vs Pre-policy0.94(0.87,1.01)0.110Interaction of Treatment Duration by Dose Tapering policy≥24-month x Post-policy1.17(1.03,1.32)0.014*Dose Tapering policy was implemented on April 1st, 2014Acknowledgments :Research is sponsored by Pfizer Ltd.Disclosure of Interests:Chao-Hsiun Tang: None declared, Chia-Li Chang: None declared, Wen-Yi Shau Employee of: Pfizer, Chih-Yi Hsin Employee of: Pfizer, Ko-Jen Li Speakers bureau: Speaker fee from Pfizer, Abbvie, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson
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