Illuminate Group (Australia)

IntroductionThe time burden of managing relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) for patients and healthcare staff is not well quantified despite its importance in treatment choice. Of interest were three higher efficacy RRMS therapies, cladribine tablets, alemtuzumab, and fingolimod because of their different modes of administration. Time and motion (T and M) surveys have previously been used to quantify time burden by asking respondents about duration of treatment administration. The objective is to determine the time taken by patients, nurses, neurologist and other specialists to treat RRMS with cladribine tablets, alemtuzumab and fingolimod using purposely developed T and M surveys.MethodsWe created two T and M surveys, one for neurologists and nurses, and another for patients. Surveys were informed by product information documents, validated by an MS nurse, and completed by telephone with patients (n=3), neurologists (n=3), and nurses (n=8) from eight MS clinics.ResultsThe overall mean time spent on treatment with cladribine tablets, fingolimod, and alemtuzumab extrapolated over 4 years was 25±3, 62±6, and 189±18 hours (p<0.0001, 1-way ANOVA, repeated measures). Neurologists’ overall time spent also favoured cladribine tablets (2.3±0.7 hours) over alemtuzumab (9.5±1.8 hours) and fingolimod (2.9±0.7 hours), (overall p=0.001). Similar results were found for nurses and patients, with the largest difference between therapies (favouring cladribine tablets) recorded for patients.ConclusionCladribine tablets were associated with a significantly lower overall time taken to treat RRMS compared to fingolimod and alemtuzumab. This warrants further research to determine if cladribine tablets could (a) increase productivity for doctors and nurses, and (b) improve patient quality of life by reducing the burden of managing their disease.