Ann Rheum Dis: The Financial Burden of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Over the past few decades, the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has made rapid progressIn particular, the emergence of biological and targeted synthetic diseases to improve the presence of anti-rheumatic drugs improves clinical prognosis and reconfigures the composition of traditional RA treatment costswith the development of biological-age treatments, this study aims to draw up existing evidence on the cost of RA disease and to analyze cost measurement and estimation methods to collect and properly interpret available datasystematically evaluate the study assessing the cost of treatment in RA patientsSearch multiple electronic databases for studies published between 2000 and 2019The total cost and cost composition of the report were evaluated based on the study and population characteristicsUse the Cochran-Armitage trend test to determine statistically significant trends in increasing or decreasing over timeincluded a total of 72 studiesDrug costs are a major component of direct costs (up to 87 per cent) and, although not statistically significant, their proportions increase over timeThe proportion of hospitalization costs showed a statistically significant decrease in chronological order (p.0.044)Indirect costs, mainly related to absenteeism and work incapacity, account edged between 39% and 86% of total costsThe reported indirect costs are highly sensitive to the estimation methodthe downward trend in hospitalization costs in chronological order suggests that cost transfers have occurred in other parts of the direct costIndirect costs still account for a large proportion of total costs, with job incapacity being the main cost componentEconomic analysis that does not include or adequately measure indirect costs will underestimate the full economic impact of RA