Psoriasis treatment responses are affected by patient characteristics. However, the literature does not contain reviews of factors that affect the response to biologic therapies. We therefore performed a comprehensive literature search to identify papers describing demographic, lifestyle, and clinical factors associated with response to biologic drug therapy in psoriatic patients. We found that age, gender, ethnicity, alcohol consumption, smoking, geographic location, age at diagnosis, duration and severity of psoriasis, and baseline C-reactive protein levels did not consistently affect response to biologic psoriasis therapy. However, increased body mass index (BMI) appears to adversely affect responses. It might therefore be valuable to include BMI as a stratification variable in future studies of psoriasis therapies and to consider a patient's weight or BMI when selecting a systemic psoriasis treatment.

ObjectiveTo use a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to evaluate preferences for the actual treatment features and overall profiles of two injectable glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (dulaglutide and liraglutide) among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the UK.MethodsIn-person interviews were conducted in the UK to administer a DCE to patients with self-reported T2DM, naïve to treatment with injectable medications. The DCE examined six attributes of T2DM treatment each described by two levels: “dosing frequency,” “hemoglobin A1c change,” “weight change,” “type of delivery system,” “frequency of nausea,” and “frequency of hypoglycemia.” Part-worth utilities were estimated using random effects logit models and were used to calculate relative importance (RI) values for each attribute. A chi-square test was used to determine differences in preferences for dulaglutide versus liraglutide profiles.ResultsA total of 243 participants [mean age: 60.5 (standard deviation 10.9) years; 76.1% male; mean body mass index: 29.8 (standard deviation 5.4) kg/m2] completed the study. RI values for the attributes in rank order were: “dosing frequency” (41.6%), “type of delivery system” (35.5%), “frequency of nausea” (10.4%), “weight change” (5.9%), “hemoglobin A1c change” (3.6%), and “frequency of hypoglycemia” (3.0%). Significantly more participants preferred the dulaglutide profile (83.1%) compared with the liraglutide profile (16.9%; P<0.0001).ConclusionThis study elicited patients’ preferences for attributes and levels representing the actual characteristics of two specific glucagon-like peptide-1 medications. In this context, dosing frequency and type of delivery system were most important, accounting for over 75% of the RI. While previous studies have identified efficacy as highly important in T2DM medication decisions, this study suggests that when differences in efficacy between medications are small, other treatment features (eg, dosing frequency and delivery system) are of much greater importance to patients.

Several factors either predictive of or associated with overall response to antidepressant treatment have been identified. Inclusion of factors predictive of response in the design of future trials may help tailor treatments to depression patients presenting to the average clinical practice, resulting in improved outcomes.

ObjectiveNonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a form of chronic liver disease (CLD): patients have an increased risk of developing cirrhosis, liver failure, and complications (e.g. hepatocellular carcinoma). NASH has a high clinical burden, and likely impairs patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL), but there are currently no licensed therapies. The objective of this robust pragmatic literature review was to identify and describe recent studies on the HRQoL burden of NASH from the patient perspective.MethodsEnglish-language primary research studies were identified that measured HRQoL in adults with NASH (population-based studies or clinical trials of pharmacological therapy). Searches were conducted in the following bibliographical databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), and Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA). Abstracts from selected congresses (2015/2016) were hand searched. Articles were assessed for relevance by two independent reviewers, and HRQoL data were extracted.ResultsA total of 567 de-duplicated abstracts were identified, and 20 full-text articles were reviewed. Eight studies were included: five quantitative, two interventional, and one qualitative. The quantitative and interventional studies measured HRQoL using the Short-Form 36 (SF-36) and the Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ), and the qualitative study involved focus groups and individual interviews. Overall, the studies showed that NASH affects HRQoL, especially physical functioning, with many patients reporting being fatigued. In quantitative studies, overall, patients with NASH had a reduced HRQoL versus normative populations and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients, but not versus chronic liver diseases. A longitudinal study showed that when weight loss was achieved, HRQoL improvement over 6 months was greater in patients with NASH versus NAFLD. Qualitative research suggested that, in addition to fatigue, other symptoms are also burdensome, having a broad negative impact on patients’ lives. The impact of pharmacological treatment on HRQoL was explored in only two included studies.ConclusionsHRQoL is impaired in patients with NASH. Patients experience a range of symptoms, especially fatigue, and the impact on their lives is broad. Further research is needed to understand the HRQoL burden of NASH (e.g. assessing NASH-specific impacts not captured by SF-36 and CLDQ) and the impact of future NASH therapies on HRQoL.

BackgroundGlucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are often recommended as part of combination therapy for type 2 diabetes when oral medication does not result in sufficient glycemic control. Several GLP-1 receptor agonists are available as weekly injections. These medications vary in their injection delivery systems, and these differences could impact quality of life and treatment preference. The purpose of this study was to estimate utilities associated with attributes of injection delivery systems for weekly GLP-1 therapies.MethodsParticipants with type 2 diabetes in the UK valued health states in time trade-off interviews. The health states (drafted based on literature, device instructions for use, and clinician interviews) had identical descriptions of type 2 diabetes, but differed in description of the treatment process. One health state described oral treatment, while six others described oral treatment plus a weekly injection. The injection health states varied in three aspects of the treatment administration process: requirements for reconstituting the medication (i.e., mixing the medication prior to the injection), waiting during medication preparation, and needle handling. Every participant valued all seven health states.ResultsA total of 209 participants completed interviews (57.4% male; mean age = 60.4y). The mean utility of the oral treatment health state was 0.89. All injection health states had significantly (p < 0.01) lower utilities ranging from 0.86 to 0.88. Differences among health state utilities suggest that each administration requirement had a small but measureable disutility: -0.004 (reconstitution), -0.004 (needle handling), -0.010 (reconstitution, needle handling), and -0.020 (reconstitution, waiting, needle handling).ConclusionsFindings suggest it is feasible to use the TTO method to quantify preferences among injection treatment processes. It may be useful to incorporate these utility differences into cost-utility models comparing weekly injectable treatments for patients with type 2 diabetes.