OBJECTIVES: To assess the healthcare resource and biological therapy use patterns in Crohn’s disease in Finland.

METHODS: As part of the registered RECREFO-study, four Finnish clinics collected real-world data of adult patients with Crohn’s disease (N=186) who initiated biological therapy between January 1st 2010 and June 30th 2016. The collected data included patient characteristics, drug treatments, and healthcare resource use.

RESULTS: Of the study population, 35.5% started adalimumab, 57.0% started infliximab and 7.5% started vedolizumab. Dose adjustments during maintenance treatment (35.9% with adalimumab, 30.3% with infliximab, 0% with vedolizumab) and treatment discontinuations (34.9% with adalimumab, 32.1% with infliximab, 14.3% with vedolizumab) were common. Concomitant drug use at baseline differed between biological therapies: thiopurines were significantly more common among infliximab initiators and methotrexate among vedolizumab initiators, whereas corticosteroids were less common among adalimumab initiators. During follow-up, the use of oral corticosteroids decreased significantly (p<0.05): from 13.6% to 3.0% for adalimumab users, from 30.2% to 4.7% for infliximab users and from 42.9% to 7.1% for vedolizumab users. Most patients had imaging examinations (88.7%), healthcare (87.6%) and drug-related visits (86.0%), and phone (93.5%) and electronic/paper contacts (82.3%). Among the patients with respective resource use, the following average use was observed: imagings 3.3 (standard deviation SD 2.2, follow-up 1159 days), health care visits 5.7 (SD 4.1, follow-up 1142 days), drug-related visits 11.7 (SD 10.3; follow-up 989 days), phone contacts 10.8 (SD 7.9; follow-up 1097 days), and electronic/paper contacts 6.4 (SD 5.3; follow-up 1162 days). Hospitalization occurred in 26.3% of patients for an average of 14.6 days (SD 18.9; follow-up 1392 days).

CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with Crohn’s disease in a real-life setting, biological therapy dose adjustments and discontinuations were common, concomitant baseline medication differed between biological treatments, and oral corticosteroid treatment use decreased after initiation of biological therapy.