New psoriatic arthritis patients don't stay long on first treatments.

[Fred]

This study which is ahead of full publication in Arthritis Research and Therapy looked at new psoriatic arthritis patients and suggest that a better understanding is needed as to why they don't stay on first treatments for a long period.

Quote:

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Introduction:
This study aimed to describe treatment changes (discontinuation, switching, and therapy add-on) following the initiation of a biologic or nonbiologic oral disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients.


Methods:
Adult patients with 2 PsA diagnoses from physician office visits, initiated on a biologic or non-biologic oral DMARD, were selected from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan Research Database (2005 to 2009). Patients were required to have continuous insurance coverage 6 months prior to and 12 months post index date (first prescription fill date). Treatment discontinuation, treatment switch, and therapy add-on were captured over the 1 year period following the index date. Treatment changes were described separately for patients initiated on nonbiologic and biologic DMARDs.

Results:
A total of 1,698 and 3,263 patients were initiated on an oral nonbiologic DMARD and biologic DMARD respectively. For patients initiated on nonbiologic DMARDs, 69% had 1 therapy change over the 12 month study period (median time 85 days). Among patients who had a therapy change, 83% discontinued, 29% switched therapy (64% switched to a biologic DMARD), and 25% had a therapy add-on (76% added-on with a biologic DMARD). For patients initiated on a biologic DMARD, 46% had 1 therapy change (median time 110 days). Among patients who had a therapy change, 100% discontinued, 25% switched therapy (92% switched to another biologic DMARD), and 7% had a therapy add-on with a nonbiologic DMARD.

Conclusion:
This study suggests that PsA patients newly initiated on a nonbiologic/biologic DMARD do not remain on the index treatment for a long period of time. A better understanding of factors related to these early treatment changes in PsA patients are needed.

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*This is a provisional article.

[mataribot]

I am sorry for this but... Besides all the side effects, traditional DRAMDs don't prevent bone damage and don't reduce pain. It's no wonder people don't want them...

[Caroline]

Indeed Mataribot, and next to that the article is extremely vague on what is tested.