Usefulness of resource utilization estimates from piggyback studies in rheumatoid arthritis

Several methods to derive estimates of resource utilization for pharmacoeconomic evaluations exist. A common method is to collect this information alongside a clinical trial. A common criticism of this data collection strategy is that it may yield inaccurate results as the clinical trial protocol places many restrictions on the study design, patient enrolment and frequency of data collection, which may lead to an artificial picture of resource consumption and costs. In this special report, this problem is examined in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Data were collected from two sources: a Phase III clinical trial with piggyback resource utilization and a cross-sectional database utilizing retrospective recall of resource use. The patients from each database were matched in terms of age, gender and Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index and major measures of resource use were compared. The results of this study suggest that there were limitations in the use of patient-reported data to estimate resource utilization in this clinical trial.