Costs of medications used to treat inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Background

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), mainly Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic diseases causing a lifelong burden and often need sustained treatment throughout a patient’s life. Both the incidence and prevalence of IBD has increased in the last decade. Evidence showing the drug costs to IBD patients in Finland is limited. No earlier study has evaluated the drug costs of IBD patients in Finland. Here, we thoroughly assessed these costs.

Methods

A structured questionnaire, hospital records and national registers were combined to comprehensively assess the actual costs of drug purchases made by IBD patients. The study sample comprised 561 patients.

Results

Total annual mean drug costs were 1428€ per patient. CD patients had higher annual costs than UC patients at 2369€ and 902€, respectively. CD patients also had higher costs in the immunosuppressant, corticosteroid, and biologic subgroup analyses. In addition, C-reactive protein, serum albumin and fecal calprotectin levels had a correlation with costs if the patient had needed corticosteroids. In addition, women reported having a worse quality of life (QoL) but had lower total costs.

Conclusions

Pharmaceutical drugs are major factors that affect the costs of IBD treatment, and the increased use of biologics has raised these costs.

Keywords:

• IBD
• cost of medication
• Crohn’s disease
• ulcerative colitis

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Robert M. Badeau, M.Sc., Ph.D., of Aura Professional English Consulting Ltd. (www.auraenglish.com), for performing the English language checking service. Also, we appreciate Auria Clinical Informatics for help with the data mining service.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

List of contributions

Concept and design: RR, AM, KM, MV

Acquisition of data: RR, AM, KM

Analysis and interpretation of data: RR, AM, KM

Drafting of Manuscript: RR

Critical revision: RR, AM, KM, MV

Final approval: RR, AM, KM, MV.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the Hospital District of Southwest Finland.