ArticleBMC health services research2025
Health economic evaluation of self-injection of biologics in patients with rheumatoid arthritis using a Japanese real-world web-based survey.
Article in BMC health services research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spatiotemporal trends and socioeconomic drivers of hip-knee osteoarthritis burden in East Asia: a GBD-based modeling study (1990-2023).Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- Societal cost-of-illness analysis of self-injection of biologics for patients with rheumatoid arthritis in Japan using claims, surveys, and national statistics.Health economics review · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBiological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) have dramatically improved the quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, concerns regarding their high cost persist. Self-injection (SI) may reduce medical expenses by decreasing the frequency of hospital visits. In this study, we compared the health economic costs of patients with RA who selected SI of bDMARDs and those who did not.
methodsIn this cross-sectional study, we analyzed data from January 2024 using a web-based self-report survey provided by Medilead, Inc. This study included patients with RA who were divided into the SI and non-SI groups. We calculated per visit and total annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for each group.
resultsAmong 326 patients with RA, 79 (24.2%; female: 64.6%; mean age: 60.2 years) were treated with bDMARDs. Of these, 65 patients (82.3%) selected SI, and 14 (17.7%) selected non-SI administration. The non-SI group had a higher median frequency of hospital visits than the SI group (12 vs. 6 visits per year). The median out-of-pocket medical expense per visit was higher in the SI group (155.17 USD/visit) than in the non-SI group (86.21 USD/visit). However, the SI group had lower total annual out-of-pocket medical expenses than the non-SI group (948.42 USD/year vs. 1,071.72 USD/year, respectively).
conclusionOver 80% of patients with RA selected SI to administer bDMARDs, and their total annual out-of-pocket medical expenses were lower than those of patients who selected non-SI owing to the reduced frequency of hospital visits. The results of our study may provide useful insights into the selection of self-injectable bDMARDs for therapeutic decision-making based on out-of-pocket medical expenses.
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