Keywords
Pharmacoeconomics
High-cost medication
Unified health system
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Abstract
Objective: Describes the types of existing pharmacoeconomic studies, identifies the high-cost drugs used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and discusses the contribution and use of these studies in the choice of these especifics drugs. Methods: This is a literature review based on publications indexed in the databases of Lilacs, Science Direct, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciElo) and Google Scholar. Results: Pharmacoeconomics refers to the economic analysis of medicines, being perfectly applied to the health sector. Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of the diseases that requires a high-cost medication. It is a chronic and systemic inflammatory autoimmune disease and affects about 1% of the population with a higher incidence in women aged 30 to 50 years. The therapy takes time and high costs. Brazilian’ Unified Health System makes medicines available for treatment. Final considerations: The importance of pharmacoeconomics in the management of these drugs is remarkable as well as assisting in making important decisions, measuring costs and analyzing benefits.