Quantifying hospital-associated costs, and accompanying travel costs and productivity losses, before and after withdrawing TNF-α inhibitors in juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Objective: To quantify differences in hospital-associated costs, and accompanying travel costs and productivity losses, before and after withdrawing TNF-α inhibitors (TNFi) in JIA patients.
Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from electronic medical records of paediatric JIA patients treated with TNFi, which were immediately discontinued, spaced (increased treatment interval) or tapered (reduced subsequent doses). Costs of hospital-associated resource use (consultations, medication, radiology procedures, laboratory testing, procedures under general anaesthesia, hospitalization) and associated travel costs and productivity losses were quantified during clinically inactive disease until TNFi withdrawal (pre-withdrawal period) and compared with costs during the first and second year after withdrawal initiation (first and second year post-withdrawal).
Results: Fifty-six patients were included of whom 26 immediately discontinued TNFi, 30 spaced and zero tapered. Mean annual costs were €9165/patient on active treatment (pre-withdrawal) and decreased significantly to €5063/patient (-44.8%) and €6569/patient (-28.3%) in the first and second year post-withdrawal, respectively (P < 0.05). Of these total annual costs, travel costs plus productivity losses were €834/patient, €1180/patient, and €1320/patient in the three periods respectively. Medication comprised 80.7%, 61.5% and 72.4% of total annual costs in the pre-withdrawal, first and second year post-withdrawal period, respectively.
Conclusion: In the first two years after initiating withdrawal, the total annual costs were decreased compared with the pre-withdrawal period. However, cost reductions were lower in the second year compared with the first year post-withdrawal, primarily due to restarting or intensifying biologics. To support biologic withdrawal decisions, future research should assess the full long-term societal cost impacts, and include all biologics.
(© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology.)