OBJECTIVES

Psoriasis is a long-term autoimmune skin disease. Biologic drugs are currently a standard of treatment that achieves effective control of symptoms in moderate-to-severe cases. Biologics have adverse events of low incidence but with a high use of resources associated with diagnosis and treatment. Data regarding costs are scarce. The objective of this study is to present the costs of the adverse events of the biological drugs used in the treatment of patients with psoriasis from Argentina.

METHODS

We conducted a literature search in PUBMED and LILACS. When no local evidence was identified, the costs of adverse events were estimated using a micro-costing approach. We identify the medical resources that are expected to be used during all phases of the treatment (diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, medication or others) and then we estimate the probability of use and the quantities that are expected to be used and the final expected amount from the unit costs of each resource from social security perspective. The expected use of the resources was calculated by three different experts (infectious disease specialist, hematologist and dermatologist) according to their experience and local clinical practice guidelines available.

All unit costs came from the Unit Costs Database of IECS (Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy, Argentina)

RESULTS

We identify and estimate the use of resources and the costs of Hodgkin lymphoma and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (first year and subsequent years), sepsis, septic arthritis, osteomyelitis, cellulitis and abscesses, community-acquired pneumonia, skin cancer type melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancer, tuberculosis and urinary tract infection.

CONCLUSIONS

Using a micro-costing method, the costs and use of resources were obtained from the most frequent adverse events associated with the use of biological products in the treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis. They constitute a useful contribution for the realization of future economic evaluations.