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Rituximab, an anti-CD20 antibody targeting B cells, has been approved as treatment for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) failing treatment with tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) inhibitors.1 Reports from France, Sweden and the UK stated that rituximab as second line maintenance treatment has lower treatment costs with quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gains compared to second line TNF inhibitors.2,–,4 Annual medical costs were estimated to be 31% lower for the rituximab strategy (ie, €11.444 and €16.555, respectively).2 However, these investigators used a modelling approach, since the medical and non-medical costs for patients treated with rituximab have not yet been measured.
In the present study, we analysed medical and non-medical costs of rituximab maintenance treatment for a period of 2 years. Patients were participants of a two-centre non-randomised open-label pilot study investigating the safety …
Footnotes
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Funding This study was supported by an unrestricted grant of Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
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Competing interests Hoffmann-La Roche provided free supplies of rituximab for the patients included in the study.
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Patient consent Obtained.
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Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the METC (Ethics Committee) of Leiden University Medical Center and Univerity Medical Center Utrecht.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.