Older anti-TNF-α agents: why not group them for common indications in the EU?

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Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Notes

1. We used “infliximab OR adalimumab OR etanercept” AND “rheumatoid arthritis OR psoriasis” and “costs OR cost” as search terms. From the 386 articles published in English from January 2000 until June 2015 initially identified, 328 were immediately discarded, being epidemiological or clinical studies (139); reviews (85); letters or comments (29); policy articles (15) and partial economic evaluations (60). Of 58 potentially eligible economic evaluations, we further excluded studies not conducted in EU settings (22) and studies focused on other diseases, other biologics or without any direct or indirect comparisons between the three older anti-TNF-α (29). We finally selected and screened seven articles to assess their main methodological features, using a common checklist.