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Study: Patients with psoriatic arthritis do not remain on disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs
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Patients with psoriatic arthritis who started nonbiologic or biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs do not remain on the newly initiated treatment plans for long periods of time, according to results of a recently published study.
Researchers selected adult patients who were diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan Research Database. The patients had continuous insurance coverage for 6 months or longer before and 12 months or longer after index treatment.
A total of 1,698 patients were initiated on an oral nonbiologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) and 3,263 on a biologic DMARD. During the 1-year period after the index date, researchers recorded the number of treatment discontinuations, switches and therapy add-ons.
Study results showed 69% of patients who took the nonbiologic DMARDs had one or more therapy changes during the following 12 months, with 83% of patients discontinuing the treatment, 29% of patients switching therapy and 25% patients having a therapy add-on. Researchers also found 46% of patients who took a biologic DMARD had one or more therapy changes, with 100% of patients discontinuing the treatment, 25% of patients switching therapy and 7% of patients having a therapy add-on with a nonbiologic DMARD.
Disclosures: Zhang is an employee of Celgene Corporation and owns stock/stock options; Gauthier and Hiscock are employees of Analysis Group Inc.; Curtis is an employee for the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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